


We're Running Just As Fast As We Can

by CloudElemental



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, But she's trying, Diego is squishy inside, Five was always a precocious little shit, Gen, Klaus Hargreeves deserves love 2k19, Luther makes bad choices, POV Alternating, Panic Attacks, Redemption for Vanya, Sibling Bonding, TV Show timeline, Things that broken aren't easily fixed, Time Travel Fix-It, Vanya goes back, White violin!Vanya, but oh boy are they all fucked up, but we love him anyways, past Allison/Luther, road to recovery, they all love each other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-20
Updated: 2019-03-15
Packaged: 2019-11-01 08:29:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 30,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17863907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CloudElemental/pseuds/CloudElemental
Summary: She wish she could go back to not feeling. This- this guilt and grief and shame was filling her up, drowning her. She couldn’t fix this. Just like she couldn’t fix Allison when she slashed her throat open with her bow.Being sorry wasn’t going to change anything.Vanya is given the chance to fix her mistake, save the world and her siblings.She really doesn't know what she's doing. All she knows is that the future she made can't be allowed to happen.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Yup! A time travel fix-it fic for a story which already contains time travel! Hold on tight cos its not going to be smooth sailing for our favourite bunch of dysfunctional adults

Part of her wondered how it had come down to this. It was a small part that was buried under the soaring emotions that swept through her body like tidal waves, crashing against her insides that had been hollow and empty for so long. Each wave brought pain and fear and anger but also jubilation, validation and such happiness. She was special. She had powers. Terrifyingly beautiful, _powerful_ powers. 

The music flowed around her in a maelstrom, building with every sweep of her bow. Every string on her violin hummed and sang, and with ease she plucked the beautiful sounds and flung them into the air, amplifying them 100 no 200 fold. There was no end, the sound would keep building folding in on its self, multiplying and growing more powerful with every second. Sound manifested as light and danced around her. She was a goddess. 

But still. 

Part of her was aware of the hail of bullets that tore through the auditorium ripping apart lush red velvet seats. Part of her saw her brothers and sister crouching behind their flimsy cover, as death closed in on them on all sides. She saw Five appear, ducking barely in time to dodge a spray of lead. _(Thank God)_ Klaus arrived soon after, yelling and waving his arms, also avoiding death by the slimmest margin. _(What is he doing the idiot!)_

The fighting picked up as she played faster; it was like she was the conductor, urging them in to a faster tempo. She saw Five take out 3 men, using his smaller stature to his advantage _(I never will get to see him grow up)_. Diego was curving knives up into the balconies, snuffing out lives with a practiced ease _(What happened to the little stuttering boy I knew?)_ Luther and Allison seemed to be arguing _(Allison I’m sorry)_ , her sister gesturing angrily at the boy she once loved.  
And then a blue light sparked and suddenly grew bright, not enough to challenge her own radiance, but enough to form the spectral form of

_(Ben!)_

Her long dead sibling spread out his arms, destroying the masked army that had invaded the concert hall. She could even hear his voice as he yelled in anger. _(Ben, is that really you?)_

All of her siblings together. It had been years, over 17 years. The sight made her _(happy, so very happy)_ furious. 

Her emotions spiralled further out of control. Every childhood hurt, once dulled by medication now lacerated her heart anew. Every cold shoulder, every ignored comment, every dismissive hand wave. How could they, she had been just as special as them, no! More special! Her power was infinite and unstoppable, they were bugs compared to her! _(It wasn’t their fault, we were children)_

They were running at her, she lashed out without thought, caught them and raised them struggling into the air. Her song speared them through their chests, let them feel a fraction of the pain she was in. _(You’re killing them)_

Their faces were shocked, grimaced in pain. She watched coldly as their life started to draw away from them. _(YOU’RE KILLING THEM!)_

A small smile pulled at the edges of her lips, finally she was the one with the power.

_(STOP! STOP YOU’RE KILLING TH-_

Everything stopped. 

Like a thread that had been cut, the energy that had been building around her snapped, rubber band like back into her body. Where was the music? Why couldn’t she hear the music?

The energy of a billion symphonies bubbled with in her, ringing with bottled anger. She couldn’t contain it. 

It burst from her form; taking with it every shred of anger she had been feeding it since the day before and emptiness once again took a hold of her body. Muffled silence. 

For a while she floated in blackness feeling calmer than she could ever remember being. It wasn’t like the false calm of the mood dampeners, that once felt more like straining against the apathy of life, a struggle against the dark. This felt more like the calm after a storm had passed. The calm you got after sobbing and crying for hours until you ran out of tears, and the feel of someone you loved softly stroking your head. With that feelings came a memory. It was hazy, blurred around the edges but the feelings of safety and love echoed through it bringing it into brilliant colour. 

A bright yellow room, a soft bed under her, the warmth of other small bodies curled around hers. A small brown hand holding hers tightly, the feel of a small back pressed up against hers. It smelled of fresh tears and her eyes still itched with the dried salt their passing had left. Seven small children comforting each other, holding each other up against the darkness of a world they only barely understood. 

They murmured to each other quietly and she strained to make sense of the words. Their voices grew louder changing in pitch, loosing their childlike innocence. She listened harder, trying to pull sense from the mutterings.

“-she alive?”

“-is?”

“Oh thank God”

Vanya woke up.

Or at least, she thought she did. She didn’t open her eyes, but suddenly the scene appeared in front of her. She seemed to be standing next to her siblings as they gathered on the floor of the stage. Each looked exhausted and bloodied. Lying in the middle of them, half on Allison’s lap was-

Her?

 _What?_

Was she dead? 

Allison was crying silent tears as she slowly rocked Vanya’s body. One of her hands was firmly pressed into Vanya’s thoat above her pulse and she was smiling in relief.

So…not dead?

Five had grabbed one of her limp hands and had two of his own fingers pressed into her wrist, checking for himself. A second passed before he too slumped in relief. He didn’t let go of her hand. 

Klaus let out a breathy chuckle as he stood and turned. As he turned in her direction Vanya was shocked to see tears in his own eyes, unshed but glimmering there in a reflection of the shuddering gasps coming from Allison. 

She felt frozen as Klaus brushed past her, her mind still empty and muffled. 

“Uhh….guys?” The relief and celebration was sucked out of the room as they all turned to see the mess of the broken moon and the on coming asteroid.

The apocalypse. It had arrived. Vanya remembered the strained voice of Five as he described the future he had come from. She hadn’t believed him. There was no way that all life on earth could be wiped out in a single day, there was no one that had that power.

She now realised how wrong she had been. Had she not be revelling in that exact limitless power not 5 minutes ago? 

She caused the apocalypse. 

Every single human and animal was about to die, and it was all on her. 

She wish she could go back to not feeling. This- this guilt and grief and shame was filling her up, drowning her. She couldn’t fix this. Just like she couldn’t fix Allison when she slashed her throat open with her bow.  
Being sorry wasn’t going to change anything. 

Her siblings were talking but she couldn’t seem to make sense of the words, they washed over her as notes of despair and acceptance. Five was tugging at his hair harshly by the roots as he paced backwards and forwards. Part of her wanted to reach out and smooth his hair back down and pull him into the hug she should have given him the second he got back. Why hadn’t she? 

They were all standing in a circle now; Five was talking quickly, explaining something as they linked hands. 

Did they have a plan? Was Five moving them somewhere? As children Five had never been able to take anyone with him when he temporally shifted, the strain had been too much to punch a hole big enough. Was he trying to do that now? 

Vanya didn’t think there was anywhere safe on the planet to go to, and Five didn’t have a very big range. So that meant…was he trying to take them through time? 

She watched as a crackling portal formed in the middle of the circle, a tear in the fabric of reality. Its edges were harsh and fraying, not the smooth cut that Five’s abilities usually caused. Five was pale now, sweat sticking his hair to his face. The portal groaned, growing another few inches. Was it growing quick enough?  
She saw the same realisation on Five’s face as he looked up checking the progress of the meteor. It was already out of sight. 

Five’s teenage body began to shake as he panted open mouthed, his eyes were dry, but Vanya could see the despair growing in him as the portal refused to grow larger. 

A rushing sound could be heard, growing louder and louder. They were out of time. 

Vanya saw the exact moment Five considered abandoning them, leaving them to die so he could go back and try to save them again. The portal was big enough for him, short teenager that he was. His eyes darted around the circle, and Vanya didn’t know what he saw, but suddenly his entire demeanour changed. Five had carried himself differently since he came back, but never before had he looked so old and weary. 

He wasn’t going to do it, Vanya realised. He was going to stay with them all and die with them. 

Vanya pushed herself forward, moving without a body was weird, and got in Five’s face. 

“Save yourself!” She screamed at him. “I can’t be the cause of all of your deaths, please Five!” 

He didn’t seem to hear her. The rushing sound grew thunderous. Vanya looked around at her siblings, they all looked grim but were holding on to each other as tightly as they could. She knew that the rest of them were too large to make it through the portal, full-grown adults that they were. 

What about her? A small voice echoed through her brain. She hadn’t grown since she was 15 and was still shorter than Five. Of course at the moment she didn’t even have any mass, so would it even work?

She could try. Go back, fix her mistake. The angry part of her, the part that howled out for justice against past hurts rebelled strongly against the idea. Why should she try and save the very people who abandoned her when she needed them most. 

In her mind she saw that warm yellow room, the feel of small limbs tangled with her own. The discomfort of Klaus’s pointy elbow sticking into her legs. The slight sweatiness of her and Allison’s gripped hands. The feel of Five’s sturdy back pushed up against hers. Ben’s hair tickling her neck as he snuggled further under her chin. Diego’s arm wrapped around her waist in a way that was surely cutting of his blood supply. Luther sitting on the floor next to the bed, head leant back and resting against her thigh. 

They were her siblings, and they were as fucked up as she was. But before life and expectation had gotten in the way they had just been lost children, clinging to each other before the unknown of tomorrow. 

Vanya stepped through the portal.


	2. Chapter 2

_“Hey, Five?” Vanya was sitting crossed legged in the library, a large book lay open and forgotten in her lap as she observed her brother who was currently lying on his back on the sofa, scrawling in a note pad._

_“Hm?” He grunted to acknowledge her without pausing in his writing._

_Vanya looked down at her book with unseeing eyes, stroking a single finger along the slight bumps in the paper._

_“What does it feel like to jump?” She asked finally._

_The sound of Five’s pen didn’t halt as he answered flippantly._

_“Well you put your two feet together, bend your knees and push off, it’s really not that difficult.”_

_Vanya scowled and threw her bookmark at him. It made it less then a quarter of the way there before floating to the ground, as paper tends to do._

_“Forget it.” She closed her book and got to her feet, pausing to retrieve her bookmark before heading towards the door._

_“It’s…it’s like being squeezed through a small gap.” Five’s voice stopped her. “You have to keep moving forward or its feels as though you might get trapped in that suffocating in-between place.”_

_“It sounds scary.” Vanya whispered out and Five responded with a scoff._

_“Well it’s not something you’ll ever have to worry about anyway.”_

_Vanya nodded and left the room._

……..

She didn’t know whether it was because she was traveling through time and not space or whether it was because she didn’t technically have a body, but jumping through one of Five’s portals felt nothing like what he had once described it as to her when they were children.

Instead of the suffocating pressure of the fabric of reality pushing in on all sides, it felt more like the universe was trying to rip her apart atom by atom. It was like she didn’t have enough substance to push and rip the fabric and instead was being passed through like water through a coffee filter. Her molecules split apart one by one as she journeyed through time and it felt as though she would never be able to form back in to once piece when she came out the other side. She would be dust, scattered amongst the fabric of reality, deader than if she had stayed with her siblings in their doomed timeline. 

The she heard it, music. Violin music. The familiar tune sang to every part of her, the melancholy melody, the vibrato on every long note, the slight wavering of tempo from playing without a conductor or metronome. It was Phantom of the Opera. More than that it was her playing Phantom of the Opera. 

The more she concentrated on the music the louder it became, until it echoed in her head. The space around her began to vibrate, and then tear, and finally it _ripped_. Vanya fell out of the air; the last thing she saw was her own shocked brown eyes grow wide in panic as she fell into herself. 

……

“Miss Hargreeves? Are you okay? Miss? Should I call a paramedic?” 

A man’s voice broke through the ringing in Vanya’s ears. She felt a hand tentatively grip her shoulder and shake it slightly, the movement spiked through her head making her groan. 

“Wha… what happened?”

“I don’t know Miss, I’m just the light technician here to turn off the lights. You fell over as I turned off the spotlight. You’re not epileptic are you Miss Hargreeves?”

“What? No, I erm… must be hungry or something.” Vanya sat up nursing her head; it felt like a vice was lodged around her brain. 

“Maybe you should get some fresh air, I’m meant to be locking up now anyway.” She looked up at the man who was standing in front of her. He was vaguely recognisable; a background figure at the concert hall, someone she nodded to occasionally but had never had a conversation with. At this moment he was looking uncomfortable, wringing his hands slightly. 

“Oh, sorry. I’ll just err get out of your hai…” Her voice trailed off as she noticed his bald shiny head, “way.” She finished awkwardly. 

The man gave her a closed lip smile as she picked herself off the ground and bent to collect her violin. The pressure in her head doubled suddenly and she bent over with a gasp. The man, (what was his name, Rick? Bob?) made an aborted movement towards her but she waved him off, instead rushing to grab her case and coat. She needed to get off the stage, something about this place was making her head feel like it was going to burst. 

She finally managed to wrestle her violin back into its case and her coat on her back and head out into the brisk night air. She walked with her head down, just wanting to get home and find some painkillers. Her hand drifted automatically to the pill bottle in her pocket, but something stopped her from taking it out, instead she tucked her chin into her scarf and walked swiftly. In her haze she nearly missed the breaking news being shown across 10 different TV boxes in the window of the pawnshop. She barely glanced at the light coming from the display, but something made her stop. A trickling sense of dread sat in her stomach. She turned slowly, and walked over to the window. The pressure in her head grew and grew; she felt she should be bleeding from hers ears, because surely her brain was being turned into mush. Through the pain she made out the picture being shown on the 12 o clock news. The death of Sir Reginald Hargreeves. 

The pain in her head spiked suddenly and then something clicked. It was like a dislocated joint had suddenly been put back in to its rightful place. The pain faded to a dull ache, but more than that, the sense of wrongness that had followed her since the concert hall abated. 

She remembered. 

…..

The rattle of a dozen little pills landing in the sink was one of the sweetest sounds Vanya had ever heard. She threw the empty orange container into the trash and then turned on the tap, washing the small white things away. She was done with that. Done with feeling nothing, done with the lack of motivation and apathy that had followed her around her entire life. Part of her had debated keeping herself on them, anything to keep the world and her siblings safe. But the very idea was abhorrent to Vanya. She would learn control. She would. 

She would prove to both her self and her father that she wasn’t the monster he had thought she was. She wasn’t the monster she had been in the last timeline. She knew what the future held, so it no longer was any threat. She didn’t want to destroy the world so she wouldn’t, easy as that.

However, Vanya knew that she still needed to prepare herself. Seeing her siblings again, knowing what had happened, how they had received her? It was going to be hard to walk into that. She flinched as her mind flashed back to the cell under the house.

No.

That wasn’t going to happen this time.

Her emotions felt tumultuous and changeable. Fragile in a sense. Was this what being off the medication was like? Every peak of emotion felt as high as Everest, every low like the deepest of pits. She was used to feeling her emotions like ripples on a lake, not like the ocean they had become. 

Panic scratched at her throat, her breath shortening. She was going to be fine, she could do this. She could. 

Vanya held her breath in for 2 counts then slowly let it out, repeating the breathing exercise until her heart felt like it wasn’t going to crash through her chest.  
She dried her now sweaty hands on her jeans and wiped her brow with her sleeve. She would take it one step at a time; thinking about the entire mess of the next 8 days would just send her into another panic. Right now she needed to concentrate on the funeral and Five’s return. 

Her heart gave a little clench at the reminder of Five’s home coming. 8 days hadn’t been nearly enough time to get used to the idea of him being back, alive and…well not happy but at least mostly sane. She has barely seen him before the end. He was never in the house when she had stopped round and she had been too… enamoured of Leonard, to search him out after the first time. 

Leonard…that was another thing she had to think about. Her chest tightened again. Just…. later. Funeral first. 

Vanya grabbed her phone out of its cradle and dialled.

“Hello, I’d like to book a taxi for the morning?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the reviews and kudos guys! They really motivate me and I try to reply to every one :D
> 
> So Vanya has appeared back at the start of the show, things will change slowly but don't worry I won't just be rehashing every scene blow by blow. Vanya has her own healing to do and not all the choices she makes may turn out the way she wants. This is a fix-it fic so I do plan on there being a happy ending, its just gonna take a while to get there, so hang on tight folks!
> 
> As I have quite a few chapters written out, I will be posting daily for a while, this may slow down eventually though just a heads up! Chapter length so far is around 1500 words per chapter, which I know its bit on the short side, but it keeps the updates regular


	3. Chapter 3

The first time Vanya had made the half hour car journey to her childhood home she remembered feeling bitter sorrow. She had just lost her Father, and even though their relationship had been strained, the loss had still left her reeling. He had seemed like such a permanent fixture never seeming old or frail. He had carried his years with a boundless grace and she wouldn’t have been surprised if he had outlived her.

Now however, the late Reginald Hargreeves was the last thing on her mind. Instead she spent the entire journey second-guessing herself. Going to the funeral was the first event that had eventually led to her destroying the world. Would it not have been better if she just avoided her siblings? What would happen if she removed herself completely from the equation? She didn’t know what effect it would have on the time stream; she wasn’t Five who had always been so smart, so logical. 

If only he had been the one to go back. He would know exactly what to do. 

The sound of the car motor grew louder and louder in Vanya’s head as she started to panic. The window she was staring out of began to vibrate and she could see the small distortions in her reflection as it shuddered. 

Vanya closed her eyes and breathed slowly. One-step at a time. She just needed to take things one-step at a time. Gradually the outside world started to filter in again, the car motor growing more distant. 

That was two panic attacks in the last 24 hours. Vanya unzipped her coat and yanked the hat off her head. With shaking hands she wound down the window and let the chilly breeze dry the sweat on her face. She met the taxi driver’s eyes in the mirror as he quickly advert his gaze. Yes. This was going great.

…..

To Vanya the house had always been an entity of its own with its own personality. The pipes would creek at odd hours, just loud enough to keep you on your toes when creeping about at night, wondering if it was the old boiler or Dad waiting around the next bend. Sometimes a light would go out for no reason and wouldn’t turn back on unless Mom was the one to flip the switch. The kitchen had always contained the smells of the next meal cooking, and it would waft through the house in unusual ways. Klaus had been on the third floor once and had sworn he had smelled cooking bacon when neither her nor Luther had, and they had been siting in the Library. 

The house had always been alive for her, even if it hadn’t been the homeliest of homes. But now as she pushed open the hard wood doors and crossed the threshold the house felt…cold, in a way it never had. Maybe it was her own emotions playing up again, but it felt like the very building was trying to make her feel unwelcome, unwanted. 

Vanya stepped lightly into the foyer, closing the door gently behind her. Did the house know that in Vanya’s time it had been less than 48 hours since she had reduced it to rubble? 

Her spiralling thoughts were brought to an abrupt halt with the appearance of a figure at the top of the stairs. Her mind flashed back to Luther standing there, large and foreboding as she cried to him about how sorry she was. But this wasn’t Luther. 

High heels clacked against hard wood floors as Allison descended towards her.

“Vanya? You’re actually here.” 

She didn’t think she would ever hear that smooth voice again, and Vanya felt her eyes start to brim with tears.

“Hey Allison.” She managed to choke out as she looked up at her sister. 

Allison was holding her self stiffly, like she didn’t know how to react to Vanya. Years of distance had ruined their relationship, though they had never been as close as some of her other siblings as children. But Vanya’s last week had given her a new appreciation for her only sister and this time she was the one to step forward and wrap her arms around the other woman. 

Allison stiffened slightly in shock but soon relaxed into the embrace.

“Hey Sis” She whispered. 

Vanya made herself let go, long before she wanted to. Well what she really wanted to do was burrow into Allison’s arms and beg for her forgiveness. But that wouldn’t help anything. Vanya had to keep it together. 

“What is she doing here?” Diego walked out of the library, every line of his body stiff and angry. “You don’t belong here. Not after what you did.”

Vanya felt her bloodstream turn to ice. He knew? How could he know? Did he come back too? He knew she was the cause of the apocalypse and he hated her for it. He would throw her back into that cell. No, he knew it wouldn’t hold her. He must want to kill her. 

“You’re seriously gonna do this today?” Allison’s voice broke through the cloud of fear that had descended on Vanya’s mind and she blinked away the water in her eyes. Diego hadn’t gotten out his knives, in fact he was walking away, his back turned resolutely towards her. Diego never turned his back to a threat…what was going on?

“Way to dress for the occasion by the way.” Allison called after him as he walked up the stairs.

Suddenly it all came back to her. The book. He was talking about the goddamn stupid book. He had said the exact same thing last time. She remembered the feeling of his anger washing over her, how she had folded in on herself ashamed and pathetic. 

“At least I’m wearing black.” Diego’s voice echoed back, the man now already half way up the stairs.

Vanya let out a huff of strained laughter and Allison turned back to her, her eyes holding pity, which quickly vanished; replaced by surprise. 

“What’s funny?” She asked, shifting her weight on to her back leg.

“Oh, its nothing just…I mean he hasn’t changed much right?” Vanya replied, burying her hands in her pockets and hunching her shoulders. 

Allison paused as she took in the slightly stooped form of her sister. 

“I guess not.” She said finally “Well, I’m glad you’re here Vanya.” Allison rested a hand gently on her shoulder, gripping it slightly before letting go. 

The smile Vanya gave the taller women was still noticeably strained around the edges but she hoped it was better then the awkward lip twitch she had given her last time. Allison responded hesitantly. 

Well it was better than nothing. 

….

The library had always been her favourite room in the house. Often her siblings and her would gather on those soft sofas as Mom had read from one of the many books that lined the walls. It would more likely than not have been a non-fiction, maybe about History or Science or Space Travel. But Mom’s voice had been smooth, and the feeling of her brothers and sister squished in tight next to her had been warm. 

Often the reading session would dissolve in to play fighting between Luther and Diego as they tried to see how hard they could elbow each other before Mom called them on it. Five would ask question after question, interrupting Mom every few sentences, often in a rude and demanding way. But Mom would just smile and answer. Allison would pinch Klaus when he started to fall asleep and then act innocent when he jumped out of the chair accidentally elbowing Ben in the face. 

Sometimes Five would grab her by the wrist tugging until she agreed that ‘yes he had made a very good point, why _couldn’t_ people travel faster than light?’ Ben would sometimes quietly take her hand and she would spend the afternoon playing with his small fingers, marvelling at their different skin shades. Whenever the boys became too boisterous Allison would make a scathing comment and follow it with ‘Vanya agrees with me, right Vanya?’ And she would nod and smile up at Allison’s face as Klaus groaned. 

But all that had been before the bank heist, before the Umbrella Academy. Before the rooms became lined with portraits without her face. Before newspaper clippings and teen magazines. Before every picture in the room showed 6 masked children happy and smiling, never missing the one person who was desperately missing them. 

Vanya didn’t walk over and pick up her book this time. She already knew that the spine was un-cracked, the pages unturned. When she had sent her father a copy she had hoped for, longed for a response. Any response. She half expected a letter telling her to redact the book at once, and ‘did she know what sort of damage she had done to the image of The Umbrella Academy?’ but no letter had ever arrived, and soon the book had faded away into obscurity. 

Instead she walked over to Five’s portrait. She had always thought it was a good likeness. The expression looked exactly like his did after he had finished spouting a bunch of techno babble and none of his siblings had followed. That look, a mix of superiority and exasperation. Vanya used to be proud that he had given her that look the least out of any of them. 

“Welcome home, Miss Vanya.”

Pogo. She had forgotten about Pogo.

The rage that caught fire in her chest surprised her. But then again. How could she not feel betrayed? Pogo had been every child’s trusted confidant growing up. He was an authority figure, but one so much kinder then their Dad. He would gently encourage and scold and hide their failures from Father. They had all loved him. Believed 100% that he always had their best interests at heart.

But all this time he had been nothing but an accomplice; the smiling face behind their Father’s machinations. An enabler of his abuse. 

Vanya’s heart thudded angrily in her chest as she turned to face the person she had brutally murdered. She wasn’t sorry. Her blood sang out for her to do it again. To paint the walls with the traitor’s blood. The air around her began to ripple. 

Vanya smiled.

“Pogo.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay! Siblings! Well...they didn't talk that much, but give it time, I promise there are lots of sibling chats happening in the future, especially once Five turns up (he may be my favourite character, shh don't tell the others) 
> 
> Oh a few things I never mentioned:
> 
> 1) This work is unbete'd so I'm sorry if there are any grammatical errors  
> 2) I'm actually from the UK, and find it super weird to type 'Mom' instead of 'Mum' I'm trying to keep to the more american colloquialisms, but if any slip through accidently I apologise!


	4. Chapter 4

Klaus Hargreeves was high. On what, he couldn’t rightly tell you. Which he knew wasn’t technically the smartest thing to do. No, the smart druggies knew to keep track of what they’d taken so that when they inevitably wound up in the back of an ambulance they could help the handsome slash pretty paramedic save their life.

But as Klaus always liked to say ‘C’est la vie!’ …Or was it that other well-known saying? Yolo? 

Well whatever it was, his attitude towards safe drug consumption was admittedly lackadaisical to half hearted at best right now. But seriously how else was he supposed to deal with the death of his dear, dear old man. His Papa. His…adopted parent figure?

Being back in the house he grew up in was strange, stranger now there was no chance of Dad appearing at the top of those stairs, wearing his customary monocle and his customary disappointment. He had worn both so very well. Or at least Klaus had always thought so. 

But he didn’t have time to reminisce. Getting high was usually a reward all by its self, but this time it came with an added bonus. He was currently too high to even summon a dead garden rat, let alone Ben. So he had a very limited window in which to get a head start on finding and pawning off his inheritance before his annoyingly moral brother could find out and urgh _guilt trip_ him about it. 

Klaus figured that the best loot would probably be in Dad’s study, the most forbidden room in the house. Though the child in him squirmed in discomfort about breaching one of the biggest rules his Father had set.

Set the kitchen table on fire? All that had gained Klaus was a disapproving look over the morning newspaper. But set a foot in Dad’s study without explicit invitation? Nothing but porridge for dinner for a week. Watching your siblings enjoy roast beef Sunday lunches with ice cream for desert while you were sat moving the same lump of oats around your bowl for an hour quickly saw to it that the rule of staying out of Dad’s study was never broken more than once. 

But the thought of all those old antiques sitting gathering dust in that room made Klaus’s skin itch. Money just sitting there, going to complete waste. Sure _apparently_ gold could never lose its market value, but who wanted to risk it, huh? It would be much better for him to exchange the items for money now, lest the family miss out on cashing in big. 

Humming to himself, Klaus started to walk towards the stairs. 

The chandelier flickered off for a second, leaving the stairs dark. Klaus glanced up in confusion, but the lights soon came back on. Then they grew brighter, and brighter, throwing harsh shadows across the foyer and burning in to his eyes.

“What the-“  
One of the bulbs shattered, the light going out suddenly. Then another went, and another. 

_Pop pop pop_

The sound was not too dissimilar to popcorn on the stove. Klaus backed away from the stairs as tiny shards of glass rained from the ceiling. This was new. Glancing to one side he saw light pouring out from the library, maybe Mom was in there? She always had a knack with the house’s lights. 

“Either something is very wrong with the electrics in this house or Dad has already become a poltergeist and is holding a very specific grudge against late 19th century wrought iron.” Klaus announced to the room as he entered.

“Oh Pogo! How lovely to see you, and is that Vanya?” 

Instead of Mom and her magic light fixing hands, Klaus was surprised to see the house’s resident ape-man and his meekest sibling having what seemed to be a very intense stare off. Actually now that he was looking, Vanya didn’t look as half as meek now as she did when she was a child. She was definitely standing taller even if she hadn’t actually grown. 

Well! Good for her. Maybe writing that book had done _someone_ some good. 

Maybe _he_ should write a book? 

“Klaus, what are you- I mean… its good to see you?” 

Take that back, maybe Vanya was still was the same old Vanya; still awkward and shy. She seemed sweatier than he remembered her being and he watched as she wiped her hands on her jeans before she stuffed them in to her pockets and hunched her shoulders.

“What were you saying about a poltergeist, dear boy?” Pogo asked, although he was still shooting Vanya a concerned stare. 

“Well _I_ don’t know much about electrics but it seems mightily odd for every bulb in the chandelier to break at the same time, gave me the most terrible fright!” Klaus pressed one hand against his chest dramatically.

“Hmm, that does sound odd, I’ll find Grace and see what we can figure out shall I?” Pogo began heading towards the door, giving Klaus a firm pat on the shoulder as he passed him. “Oh Miss Vanya, I would love to catch up more later, if you feel up to it my dear. Its been so very good to see all of you back in the house, does an old man’s heart proud.” 

Klaus glanced over at Vanya, expecting one of her trademark lip twitch smiles, but instead she was staring completely blankly at Pogo’s back. 

Klaus waited until Pogo had finished hobbling away (he definitely wouldn’t be winning any sprints any time soon) before he ambled over to his sister.

“So Vanya! Long time no see!” He leaned down, pulling the short women into a hug. The restrained back pat he was expecting never appeared however, instead he felt small arms tentatively wrap around his waist before squeezing with surprising strength. 

She let go first and Klaus stepped back taking in the changes 13 years had done to the girl he once knew. Of course her face was very familiar, having seen it on the back of that book a few years back. He felt that there may have been a few more stress lines on her forehead now, but he was sure that a being a…. wait what did she do for a living again? Well never mind, he was sure that whatever it was must be as stressful as it was fulfilling. That’s what normal people without powers _did_ right?

“Has anybody told you, you have amazing timing Klaus?”

“Many, many times, but normally its more a comment on my dance skills that conversational.” He spun away, hands in the air. “A perfect pirouette!”

Vanya smiled and Klaus grinned back. 

“Well, I’m sure we’ll bump into each other later, but I really must find the others and pass on my deepest deep condolences.” He sighed dramatically, wiping a fake tear from his eye.

“Yeah, I’m gonna…go grab a drink.” 

“Getting started early? I like your style Sister!”

“Of water you prat.” Vanya smiled again, it seemed to reach more of her eyes this time and Klaus gave himself a little pat on the back. 

If there was one thing he was good at, it was a little comic relief; god knows he had to be useful for something right? He gave Vanya a little wave and wink before following Pogo out of the room. 

Now about Dad’s study…

……

Vanya drained her glass a second time before pushing it back under the faucet and filling it up again. With a slightly trembling hand she turned the tap until the water stopped flowing, then walked over to the table and slumped into a chair. 

She couldn’t believe she had nearly killed Pogo. Again! Oh sure she still wanted to. But it would have been the stupidest move to make. Her siblings would never trust her again if they found her eviscerating their monkey butler.   
Thank God for Klaus and his unique weirdness, it had been enough to completely shock her from her rage. The memory of him doing a little pirouette in response to her shaky thanks was enough to bring another small smile to her lips.

But it quickly faded.

He had been high, extremely so, the fact that he was still able to walk and talk right now was borderline impressive. But he hadn’t seemed like that at the end. At the big fight he had summoned Ben. It must have been him. What happens in the next 8 days that changes him so much? 

It was only now occurring to Vanya how much she didn’t know about what had happened with her siblings when she had been with Leonard. What if she accidently made a change that meant Klaus never got clean? Without knowing what the trigger was in the first place it was a very valid concern. Was it possible by trying to help she would just break her brother even more? 

He obviously needed help, but she didn’t think telling him to talk to a therapist would work very well. It hadn’t for Five. 

Also…she had another problem. It was becoming increasingly clear for Vanya that she...wasn’t ok. She was constantly on the edge of a panic attack, and every emotion felt like it was scratching her insides like steel wool. She hadn’t even considered the effect that long term mood suppression medication might have on her, or what going cold turkey would do. 

She thought she could manage it, she did last time, admittedly with Leonard’s help. But had she actually been ok then too? Maybe instead of the anxiety she was experiencing now she had just been high on euphoria…on love instead, just as unbalanced, but instead only feeling the more positive emotions.

If that was true then did it mean that without her medication she would always been this messy broken person?

How was she supposed to fix her siblings and fix the apocalypse, if she couldn’t even fix herself?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A wild Klaus appears! 
> 
> So yeah, POV change! They're not going to be that frequent, this is still primarily a Vanya POV story but I find its really useful to see things from the other characters perspective some times. For example in this instance Klaus is high and too distracted to really pay attention to what was happening, which means he has _no_ idea that he just saved Pogo's bacon. He also didn't really pick up on Vanya's emotional state past spotting that she looked sweaty. (Pogo however was completely clear minded...this will probably be not good for Vanya later)
> 
> I hope you liked reading Klaus's perspective, he was a lot of fun to write. I can't wait to write for sober Klaus, I think you're all gonna notice a BIG tonal shift when that happens. 
> 
> Oh one IMPORTANT thing I wanted to address: The chapter lengths  
> I know that an average of 1500 words per chapter is pretty short. Sadly for next few chapters they're all gonna be around that long. I know it can be frustrating as a reader to just be getting into something and for it to end suddenly, but keeping the chapters short is really helping me keep to the schedule of daily posting, and also motivating me to keep writing.  
> I haven't got the best track record of finishing fanfics, but I love this story so much already and don't want to rush and post it all at once and then lose motivation. The Chapters will eventually start getting longer as plot stuff starts happening, (the one I just finished was double this ones length)
> 
> Daily updates will be continuing for a while longer, so the chapters will be staying on the shorter side. If the updates slow down then don't worry I will do my best to make the chapters longer so as to be worth the wait.
> 
> I hope you guys continue to enjoy the story, even with the shorter than average chapters!


	5. Chapter 5

The morning slowly turned into the afternoon as Vanya sat in the kitchen. Every so often she heard movement come from above her; her siblings walking around upstairs. She wanted to go up there, talk to them, connect with them in the way she hadn’t last time. But her fear kept her seated.

She picked up her glass, now empty, and spun it lightly in her hands. It was made with the type of thick glass that was more likely to chip your sink if you dropped it while washing up than smash. Absent-mindedly she tapped her fingernail against the surface in a staccato. 

She had yet to see Luther, and out of all her siblings she was most concerned about him. More accurately she was concerned with how she would feel about him when she saw him again. She didn’t want a repeat of what had happened with Pogo. 

Vanya breathed slowly and tried to imagine his face in front of her. 

She flinched harshly as the feeling of having her breath squeezed out of her slammed to the forefront of her mind. 

No! She knew why he did it, he was trying to protect Allison, he did what he thought a leader should do when faced with a threat. 

_She was screaming and sobbing and oh god the room was so small, just let her out, she wouldn’t ever hurt anyone again she promised, don’t leave her here. DON’T_

The sound of shattering glass and a sharp pain in her fingers snapped Vanya out of her flashback. She hadn’t even noticed the sound of her tapping on the glass growing louder and filling her mind. And now she had a broken glass and cut fingers.

This was impossible, she couldn’t do this. How could she have ever thought that she would be able to save _anybody?_

“Mom? Is that you? Did I hear a glass break?” Diego’s voice sounded at the door. “Oh its you.”

Vanya turned to stare wide-eyed at her brother. Her hands brushed against the glass shards on the table, making a soft tinkling noise against the wood.

“What happened?” Diego took a step further in to the room reluctantly. His eyes landed on the mess on the table and his brow furrowed into a frown. 

“Did you actually manage to break one of those glass bricks of a cup? And then what,” He gestured at her bleeding fingers, “rub your hands in the shards? That’s kinda messed up. Sis.” 

The way he spat out ‘Sis’ would have made the old Vanya draw into herself. Now she just felt tired.

“My hand slipped.” She replied quietly, standing up to wash the blood off at the tap. 

Diego grunted in disinterest, but Vanya was surprised to find him holding out a clean tea towel for her when she turned around. She took it with a quiet thanks, and started to dry the pinkish water off her hands. 

The silence that descended over the room was awkward to say the least. Diego crossed his arms over his leather bound chest and refused to make eye contact with her.

Vanya opened her mouth, maybe to apologise or to reminisce or to thank again, but her brother her cut her off before she could get a syllable out.

“Everyone is meeting in the library. _I_ think you should just leave, but Allison wants you there.” With that said he turned and walked out of the room, not once looking in her direction. 

Well, it was more words than they had exchanged last time, she would count that as a positive. 

…..

Vanya had forgotten how thick the air had seemed in the library the first time this meeting had happened. Diego was resolutely ignoring all of them as he glared out of the window. Or maybe he was just staring; it was so hard to tell these days. Allison was swirling a glass of scotch, intermittently taking dainty sips. Klaus was bent over behind the bar, pulling out what seemed like every one of Dad’s fine crystal glasses, trying to find the biggest and fanciest. Luther sat twiddling his thumbs and trying not to shoot puppy eyes at Allison. He wasn’t succeeding. 

Vanya had been so relieved to find that no fire had ignited in her chest at the sight of her largest brother. Instead a much more fragile and wobbly feeling had taken root in her heart that was currently making it very hard to look at him without bursting into tears. 

Luther cleared his throat and got to his feet.

“I guess we should get this started.” 

Vanya kept her eyes fixed on her lap; she had a hole in her jeans that she hadn’t noticed. She picked at the fraying edges with her nails as Luther declared the memorial service under the oak tree. Dad’s quote ‘favourite spot’. 

Luther’s surprise at the knowledge that, no, his siblings hadn’t ever sat outside with their Dad for fun had barely registered with the others before Klaus interrupted, defusing the situation with practiced ease.  
“Will there be refreshments? Tea? Scones? Cucumber sandwiches are always a winner.” 

It was kind of fun to watch Luther grow flustered and frustrated with his brother. Last time Vanya had been too concerned about trying to blend in with the sofa she was sat on to enjoy the show in front of her. It almost reminded her of those pre-academy library sessions they had all shared. 

_“Klaus stop pushing your feet under me! They’re cold!”_

_“And your butt is warm Allison! Stop being selfish, sharing is caring.”_

_“Maybe your feet wouldn’t be so freezing if you put socks on…hey wait_ is that my skirt?”

Allison’s adult voice overlapped with Vanya’s memory and the déjà vu of the moment made her laugh out loud. 

“What? I know it’s a bit dated, but its very breathey on the,” Klaus gestured downwards, “bits.”

“No, I think it suits you actually.” Vanya found herself saying “I have to wonder why you never stole any of my clothes though, is that a statement against my sense of fashion?” 

Klaus pushed her hand away from the hole in her jeans and poked one of his long fingers through it and into her leg. Vanya swatted him away with an eye roll.

“I rest my case!” he said with a flourish.

“Listen up.” Luther’s harsh voice cut through the happiness that had began to bubble up in Vanya’s stomach, turning it back into a lead weight. 

“Still some important things we need to discuss, alright?” 

Klaus threw himself down on the sofa next to her; she was impressed that he managed to not spill a drop of whatever amber liquid was sloshing up the sides of Dad’s biggest brandy glass. 

Luther began his soldier’s report, listing anything that was slightly odd about Dad’s death. Diego quickly began to shoot him down but Luther dug his heels in. Even Allison voicing her doubts did nothing to quell the conviction in Luther. 

He never did listen to their opinions. Not when he was already certain he knew the answer. Last time Vanya had added in her two bits about the coroners report, and that had ended with Luther revealing he thought one of them had killed their Dad. Could she head this off, stop this break of trust that Luther was about to blunder in to in his bull headed way? Should she even bother? Out of all her siblings she owed Luther the least, and honestly he could use more people questioning his leadership. 

She knew it was petty, vindictive even. But a big part of Vanya so badly wanted to see Luther brought low, ostracised from his siblings the way she had been. It would take work but she could do it probably. The way things stood now between her siblings it wouldn’t take much to permanently break that tenuous connection between them and Luther. This here was the start, yet somehow in 8 days time Luther still commanded enough of his siblings love and respect that they would follow whatever bad decision he made. Even if it was abandoning their sister in a soundproof cell. 

She was running out of time. Even without her input the conversation was hurtling towards its destined outcome and she was sat here paralysed by indecision. If she did nothing was she a bad person? Maybe. If she did step in, was she giving Luther more respect and command over her siblings? Probably. Was she overthinking and worrying about this single conversation way too much? Quite possibly. 

“Isn’t it obvious, Klaus? He thinks one of us killed Dad.” Diego’s soft words struck the room silent in disbelief. 

She was too late. 

This time Vanya was the first one to walk out, relief and self-hatred battling for dominance inside her. She caught the sight of Luther’s face crumple into that of a lost little boy before she turned the corner. 

Part of her crowed in jubilation. 

The rest of her just felt sick.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vanya's first time at trying to change something doesn't go to plan and she freezes up, it was bound to happen, she has some pretty bad trauma related to Luther, so being altruistic towards him wasn't going to go well.
> 
> I'll admit I have some complicated opinions of Luther, but i'm going to do my best to keep him in character and not bash him. I also however will not be painting him in a super sympathetic light, he has a lot of growth to go through first. 
> 
> You guys are the best by the way! The support and reviews I've been getting have been keeping my mood up for days now, thank you so much! I appreciate each and every one and will continue to answer them <3
> 
> (Next chapter Five appears, I can't wait!)


	6. Chapter 6

“Children behave! That's what they say when we're together!” 

The music echoed through the house, Vanya could even hear it in the kitchen where she was currently hiding. Klaus had poked his head around the door a little while ago but had left without saying anything; she was probably stealing his spot come to think of it. But Vanya wasn’t willing to concede it.

There was something about the room that was just more calming than anywhere else in the house right now. Maybe because it was somewhere Dad rarely entered. Maybe it was the colourful magnets and drawings still attached to the fridge, remnants of more innocent times. Maybe because it was the closest place in the house to where Five would appear so very soon. 

After calming down, yet _again_ , Vanya had wanted to shake herself. She knew she had never been the most confident or assertive person, but since coming off the mood dampeners it truly felt like every decision she made would either save the day or doom the entire planet to a fiery end. Which yes, that was what was at stake, but not every inconsequential thing she did or didn’t do would spell disaster. 

She had become an anxious mess, overthinking _everything._ At first it had been terrifying but now she was just getting frustrated with herself. 

Okay she got it! She was messed up! Could she just get on with actually fixing things now please! 

Vanya groaned and dropped her head to the table. Luckily the broken glass from her earlier freak out had already been cleaned up, most likely by Mom, or she would have added lacerated face to her list of problems. 

_“Vanya, the road to getting better is not a quick one. It’s something you’re going to have to acknowledge. You can’t expect to walk in to my office and have everything be fixed in time for dinner; the mind just doesn’t work like that. These things take time and the willpower to keep trying even when it feels like you aren’t improving.”_

_Dr. Kahn tapped her pen against her notes. She was a middle-aged woman, with dark brown skin and a slight accent that Vanya had found soothing._

_“You’ve already taken the first step and that is admitting you need help. There are some things in life you just can’t carry alone, and there is no shame in finding someone to help lighten the load. It doesn’t always have to be me, even just writing what you’re feeling down can be a big help in figuring out where to go next.”_

The next day Vanya had gone out and bought a typewriter. 

But she couldn’t do that this time. She was alone with her sins weighing heavy on her back. There would be no kind Dr. Kahn to offload on to and she couldn’t expect her siblings to take that kind of weight. Also…. she didn’t want them to look at her differently. Even if they accepted her words that she hadn’t meant to go supernova and destroy the world, she would always be the person who killed them all in another timeline to them. Seeing them look at her with fear in their eyes had broken her once before. She didn’t think she could take that again. 

No, sorry Dr. Kahn. There would be no ‘sharing the load’ this time. Vanya was just going to have to learn to do it herself. 

A crack of thunder had Vanya sitting bolt up right, every hair on her arms standing on end. 

Five.

She pushed her chair back, almost tripping as her feet tangled with its legs in her haste. Impatiently she kicked backwards knocking the chair over and sprinted to the backdoor. 

Vanya ignored the sounds of her siblings racing down the stairs behind her. She heard Luther shout for her to stop and then curse as she proceeded to ignore him. 

Pushing the door open was harder on her own, the gale force winds on the other side kept slamming it back into her face, but she persisted and managed to get through it a few seconds before the rest of her siblings caught up.

Above her was a very familiar crackling blue tear. Electricity arced in every direction but the centre of the rip was like a rippling blue lake and she could see trees and blue sky as through they were sitting at the bottom of it. 

Diego, Luther and Allison finally showed up behind her. 

“What is that?! Vanya get back, don’t get so close!” She felt her sister grab her arm and pull her back into line next to her siblings.

“Looks like some sort of temporal anomaly!” Luther yelled over the sound of the wind “Either that or a miniature black hole.” 

Diego turned to snap something smart back at him, but Vanya interrupted.

“Can’t you see it? There’s someone on the other side!” 

Luther and Diego shared a look before both taking small steps forward and tilting their heads up.

“She’s right,” Diego said begrudgingly, “there’s someone there.”

“OUT OF THE WAY!” Klaus screamed from behind them, pushing through his two brothers to throw a red fire extinguisher at the portal.

“Don’t!” Vanya yelled, but it had already been sucked through the tear. What if it hit Five?!

“What?” Klaus turned to her, “You have a better idea?!”

The sound of the lightning changed pitch; growing more insistent and Klaus yelped ducking back as a spark flew over his head. 

Now that Vanya had pointed it out, everyone’s attention was firmly on the old man as he pushed himself through the portal. The wind tore at him and his mouth was open in a silent scream.

“Everyone get ready! We have no idea who that is!” Luther shouted. Diego nodded and pulled out two knives while Allison tugged Vanya further behind her.

Vanya wiggled out of her sister’s grasp and grabbed Diego’s arm. “We don’t know if he means harm!” She yelled out desperately.

“Let go!” He yelled back trying to shake her lose.

“What the fu-“ Luther cut himself off as the portal suddenly closed, silence taking over the courtyard. 

“Did anyone else see that old man turn into little Number Five, or was that just me?” Klaus whispered from behind Luther’s large form.

The figure that was Five got to his feet looking slightly dazed. His eyes passed over the 5 of them before dropping down to his own chest- currently clothed in a suit many times too large for him.

“Shit.” 

…..

Well, this was unexpected. 

In all of his calculations Five had never considered the possibility that his suspended quantum state body would be him aged 13. Of course it made sense, it was the age in which he first time travelled. There was some other maths involved but it was fine, this was workable, if not really preferable. Another side effect seemed to be the return of his more childish taste buds, and so he grabbed the loaf of bread off the kitchen counter and set about making himself a sandwich with an insane amount of sugar in it while doing his best to avoid looking at the ghosts currently sitting across from him.

Yet another miscalculation. 

He hadn’t given much thought to how his mind would react to seeing the faces he had only known as dead bodies, now walking and talking. There was some disconnect in his mind, between the idea of his family and the dead strangers sitting across from him, and honestly he didn’t know if it was worth fixing. Unless he could save the world they would all go back to being dead again very soon anyway. 

“What’s the date? The _exact_ date?” Getting down to business was a great way to distract from the images of milky eyes and bloodless skin that was currently overlapping his vision. 

“The 24th of March.” A women’s voice replied, it had a soft quality to it and his ears picked up the slight waver of a hidden emotion.

Ahh.

Vanya. 

“Good.” He had time, not much, but enough…probably. 

“So, are we gonna talk about what just happened?” Five saw Luther still hadn’t mastered a way of talking that didn’t make him sound like a giant prick. 

Like the predictable fool he was, when it became clear his brother wasn’t going to answer him, Luther stood up to tower over Five, trying to use his height to maintain his command over the situation. It hadn’t worked when they had been kids and it definitely wasn’t working now. 

“It’s been 17 years.” Luther ground out.

Five scoffed and bent space around the big oaf to get to the marshmallows.

“Its been a lot longer than that.” He replied as flippantly as possible. 

What he really wanted right now was for them all to leave him alone, and if that meant alienating them as much as possible so that he could get the breathing room to acclimatise to being back he would do it without second thought. What did it matter, they were dead anyways…well soon to be….or not. Urgh he didn’t want to deal with this right now. Deloris would be able to help him sort his brain out. He just needed to keep it together until then.

“Where did you go?” the dead man who had once and would be his brother asked. Were they still talking to him? 

“The future. It’s shit, by the way.” _Ash, ash for mile after miles. Who knew if what he was breathing in was the burnt remains of the city or the human race? He supposed it didn’t really matter anymore._

Five pulled himself back to the present. Peanut butter. He needed peanut butter.

“I should have listened to the old man. You know, jumping through space is one thing, jumping through time is a toss of the dice.” They only had smooth peanut butter, he preferred crunchy but he supposed it would have to do.   
Five risked a glance at the group in front of him. Hmm they still looked pretty dead. That was concerning. 

“Nice dress.” Klaus’s body hadn’t been wearing that when he last saw him. The difference helped, and Five managed to see his brother’s answering grin through the dead façade his mind had projected. 

“But you managed to get back.” Vanya spoke up

“Well, it took some time. 45 years give or take.”

Luther sat down. 

“You mean you’re 58?”

“No. My _consciousness_ is 58. Apparently my body is now 13 again.” 

“I guess that explains the older man we saw through the portal, that was your body before you travelled back to us, right?” Five finished making his sandwich and shot Vanya an appreciative look.

“Exactly.” She had always been one of the smart ones out of his siblings.

He took a large bite of nutty sugary goodness. 

“You know about Dad then?” She continued.

“Heart failure right?” He replied.

“No.” Luther cut in angrily, shooting Vanya a displeased look. Her shoulders hunched and she dropped her gaze to the table.

“Hmm. Nice to see nothings changed.” Five said sarcastically. He was done with these weird twisted versions of his siblings. Also looking at their pale dead faces was putting him off his sandwich. 

He wondered if his clothes were still in his room? He walked past the ghosts and headed towards the stairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Five! Yay! 
> 
> I loved writing for his POV, hes just like: 'yup my head is messed up, damn no crunchy peanut butter' 
> 
> I wanted Vanya to give him a massive hug so bad, but Five just refused to cooperate. It would be so out of character for him, he probably hasn't had physical comfort from anyone in decades. Don't worry though, this fic will not end until I get my Vanya and Five hug!
> 
> Thank you again for the reviews guys, they give my life :D


	7. Chapter 7

Vanya hadn’t realised how tense she had been before Five had appeared again, safe. It was the final proof that she hadn’t actually killed any of her siblings. They were all here alive. Well not Ben, but it wasn’t like she could have made him deader than he already was by destroying the planet. 

Five had been the biggest what if. A small part of her had expected the Five from her future to appear. She didn’t know exactly how time travel worked but she was thankful that the version of her brother that had arrived wasn’t the one that knew that she was the reason he had spent over 40 years of his life completely alone in the wasteland of a dead planet. 

Being off her medication had given her the ability to feel the full scope of her emotions when Five had dropped back into their lives. She had been hard pressed to not pull him into a crushing hug and blubber all over him. But the tense way in which Five had avoided touching any of them, or even make eye contact with them for extended periods of time had made it clear he wouldn’t have welcomed the contact. She couldn’t blame him really. Who knows how long it had been since he’d had positive physical human interaction? Who knows how long it had been since he’d had _any_ human interaction? 

She knew Five would eventually head down to the library, it was where she had bumped into him last time after all. This time she decided she would wait in there instead, give him a polite out if he decided he didn’t want to talk to her after all.

Scanning the bookshelf for something to read, just in case Five saw her and walked away, her finger stopped on a familiar book cover. 

The Frequencies of the Soul. 

Although a rather grandiose title, the book was actually about the science of music. It had been a favourite of hers as a child and had fascinated her. That something as beautiful as Mozart or Bach could be broken down into mere vibrations moving at different speed through the air, in Vanya’s childhood mind it had made them even more amazing. 

Now however.

Since the reveal of her powers, Vanya’s relationship with music had changed irreversibly. It had once been something pure, something she had worked hard to get good at, something that set her apart from her naturally gifted siblings. Now it was a weapon, tarnished forever by the destructive abilities she wielded. Would she ever be able to play again without the fear that with the slightest misstep she would kill everyone she loved?

“I’d think you would know that one off by heart by now.” Five’s voice sounded from behind her. “You must have read it cover to cover over a half dozen times.”

She turned and managed to summon a small smile for him.   
“Its one of Dad’s better books, you have to admit.” Vanya replied. 

“Although some may argue that music is what makes us human, we must remember that all things have their own frequency, everything from the flap of a butterfly’s wings to a neutron star 5 billion light years away.” Five quoted at her.

“It is a human gift to be able to pluck mathematical equations into the air using vibrations, the secret of the universe can be found in music, and also inside us.” She finished the paragraph from memory.

“I can’t believe you still remember that.” Vanya sat down on a sofa

“You read it to me enough times, I always thought the author could have afforded a little less of the poetry and a little more science.” Five shot her a challenging eyebrow.

Vanya rose to the old bait, like she had done dozens of times before. “Poetry is the true expression of the human experience.” She recited. 

“It’s trite.” Five responded right on cue. 

Vanya let out a huff of laughter, and to her embarrassment she felt tears start to prick at her eyes. She tried to discreetly wipe them away with a swipe of her sleeve.

She needn’t have bothered however; Five had his back to her and was currently browsing the books on the shelves. He stopped in front of a familiar paperback.

“Your autobiography,” he plucked it from the shelf and flipped through the pages, stopping only for a second on the message she’d written at the front. “I read it you know, found it in what was left of the town library. Thought it was pretty good, all things considered. Definitely ballsy. Giving up the family secrets? I’m sure that went over well.” 

Vanya sighed, “It was a mistake to write and it’s definitely made things…tense with Diego. But at the time it’s what was best for me. I can’t say I regret it completely, even though it didn’t get me the reaction I wanted from Dad. I never meant to hurt anyone.”

“Are you sure about that?” Five dropped the book on to the table and sat down opposite her. “It read like a big fuck you to Dad actually, at least from my perspective, unfortunate that he wasn’t the one with feelings to hurt.” 

She pressed her lips together tightly. He was right. Writing the book had been about getting back at Dad, at bringing all of his despicable behaviour into the light. But the only place she knew to hit him was through the Academy, through her siblings. 

Vanya suddenly felt exhausted.   
“I do owe them an apology.” She finally said. 

Five shrugged

“Do what you like. As I said I thought it was pretty good. There were definitely some hard truths in there, but it was nice to read about you guys, a connection to my past, you know?” 

“Well then I’m glad I wrote it, even if its only use was letting you know how fucked up we became while you were gone.” 

Five gave his own small smile, Vanya was sad to see it didn’t fully reach his eyes.

“It’s where I found out about Ben actually. Was it as bad as you implied?” he stared out of the window, his jaw set.

The old grief welled up in her for a moment, bringing a clog to her throat. Of course he would want to talk about Ben, they had been close too she remembered.

“It was…” Vanya cleared her throat, “It was bad Five.” 

She watched him press his lips together tightly. The only sign of the emotions she was sure he was feeling. It was a failing of her entire family really, something taught by their Father. 

_“Always keep a stiff upper lip children. To show your feelings is to show weakness. Number 6 stop crying this instance! Strength comes from composure. And composure comes from discipline. We will start the drill from the top, and we will not be moving on until every one of you can complete it with dry eyes!”_

He may be dead, but Reginald Hargreeves would always live on in the damage and scars left behind on everyone in this house.

….

The weather turned just before sun down, and once again the 6 of them ventured into the cold rain to pay respects to the man who had raised them. Vanya stuck close to Klaus and Five, knowing they’d be standing at the opposite end of the circle to Pogo. Also, Klaus had already proven that he was able to distract her from her blind rage at the ape just by being himself so she kept her eyes fixed on his small kiddy umbrella and followed her siblings outside. 

By watching Klaus try and keep as much of his body dry under the tiny umbrella it was easier than she thought to ignore the cultured voice of Pogo wobble out a eulogy for the man who’d created him. He couldn’t seem to find a position that didn’t leave an elbow or knee sticking out to be caught in the deluge and he kept shuddering as the cold water splashed up at his bare legs. The sooner this was over the sooner they could all get back inside and dry off.

Diego’s angry voice cut across Pogo. Oh no, not this again. 

Luther and Diego had always been pretty physical, play fights as children had evolved into real fights as teenagers as Diego grew more bitter and Luther more uptight. They’d never been discouraged by father, violence had always been matter of course in the Hargreeves household, and neither of them had ever done the other any permanent damage.

But this time was different. Diego was thrumming with pent up anger right now and Luther had taken a few too many blows to his status of defacto family leader in the last few hours and was ready to respond in the only way he knew how to when his authority was challenged. With his strength. 

The full force swing her largest brother threw at Diego would have knocked him out cold in a single hit if it had connected and everyone in the courtyard heard the whistle it made as it sailed over the shorter man’s head.

“Shit.” Vanya watched as her other siblings backed up, Klaus pushing Five behind him, much to his displeasure and Allison looked exasperated as she lead Mom back to a save distance. Pogo was calling out ineffectively, but no one had ever physically gotten in-between a fight between Dad’s golden boy and the runner up before.

Until now.

Oh she knew it was probably a stupid idea. It was unlikely to endear her to either Luther or Diego, but beating each other senseless wasn’t the right way to deal with this.

Luther swung his fist at Diego again, this time clipping him slightly and pushing him back. Vanya used the space the action cause to push herself those last few steps and get in-between, her umbrella abandoned on the ground behind her. She knew there was no way she’d be able to physically hold either of them back, but that didn’t stop her from reaching out and pushing with all her strength against Luther’s broad chest. 

“Stop it!” 

It was like pushing against a stone wall, and for a second she thought Luther would swat her aside like a fly. Her heart was beating out of her chest at being this close to him again. The last time she had, he had choked her to unconsciousness. 

Frantically she turned to look at Diego who was currently shaking off the haymaker Luther had clipped him with. 

“Just stop!” Her voice trembled as her mind screamed at her to _get away from him! GET AWAY! HE’S GOING TO HURT YOU!_

She managed to grit her teeth against the whimper that rose in her throat.  
“W-we haven’t seen each other in _years_. We just got Five back. Please, please stop fighting.” She forced out

Diego was panting but managed to let out an angry scoff.

“This has nothing to do with you.”

“He was my father too. And trust me I know a lot about lashing out against the easy target to try and hurt him, but guess what! He doesn’t care! He never did!” Vanya gestured at the pile of ash currently turning to slurry on the ground. “I would even say he cares even less now, but that isn’t humanly possible!” 

Luther roughly pushed her hand away from his chest and backed up a few steps, he looked around the courtyard eyes landing on Allison longer than the rest before glancing away. Without looking back he walked over to the door, pulling it open hard enough for the hinges to cry out in protest, before striding in to the house. 

Silence descended over the courtyard.

“Well, that was fun!” Klaus quipped, walking over to Diego to pat him on the shoulder, “You could have taken him though.” 

He flicked the end of his cigarette into the wet pile of ashes, Alison frowned in disapproval, before following his brother back inside. Number Five sighed before doing the same, with Allison trailing close behind. Diego stared at Vanya for a few seconds more. She could feel the rain soaking into her hair and jacket; soon she would be as soaked as him. Then he turned on his heel and walked over to Mom, ignoring Vanya as he gently coaxed her towards the door.

She was left alone as the rain continued to pour from the sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Change! Its starting to happen! Slowly but things will soon butterfly outwards and pick up tempo as certain choices knock on to each other.  
> This story is also starting to pick up some new readers, so hello and welcome! I hope you're enjoying it so far!


	8. Chapter 8

Vanya didn’t know how long she stood out there; she had long since gotten her emotions back under control, but she found herself staring at Ben’s statue. She knew she saw him at the big fight. Did that mean he was here now? Or was he only around when Klaus summoned him? She wondered what he thought about all of this; out of all of them he had lost the most through their Father’s questionable parenting techniques.

Ben had been unique amongst her and her siblings. In a group of 7 children everyone had a favourite brother or sister. Sometimes it would change week to week. Allison and Klaus would notoriously fall out every other week, Diego and Luther every other day. Her and Five had always been pretty close. But Ben, everyone loved Ben. You wouldn’t think that in a group of loud, super powered children, the small quiet bookish boy would be the most popular, but there had been something so kind and genuine about Ben that had shined through even when they were kids. He could be quiet and introspective one minute and then giggling with cheeky glee the next. She missed him, they all did. But he was out there somewhere, maybe not alive, but…aware. She hoped she would see him soon.

Eventually the sun had sunk completely beneath the horizon and she found herself shivering from the cold. With stiff limbs she opened the back door and let herself into the house. Her hair was plastered to her neck with rainwater, so instead of dripping her way upstairs to grab a towel she decided to grab a tea towel from the kitchen.

She found Klaus sitting at the table hugging an electric guitar twitching slightly as Five rooted through the cupboards. 

“Are you ok?” She blurted out; Klaus did not look very good. He had a fine sweat on his forehead and his pupils were massive. 

“Am I ok? You’re the one who looks like she went swimming in a leather jacket and jeans. Which would be impressive, as we don’t have a pool. Why _don’t_ we have a pool? Surely dear old Dad was rich enough for one?” Klaus rambled 

Five stood up straight and slammed an empty cafetiere on the table.  
“Never mind a pool, looks like Dad couldn’t even afford coffee beans.” 

“Dad hated caffeine, you know that.” Allison appeared in the doorway. “Vanya you’re soaked!”

Vanya grabbed a tea towel off the table and started squeezing the water out of her hair. 

“Actually a coffee sounds heavenly right now.” She muttered from behind fabric as she dried her face. She was glad she had foregone make up this morning. 

She pulled the towel away from her face to see Five looking at her with pursed lips. He glanced down when she made eye contact, before looking back up seemingly having decided something.

“I’m taking the car to grab a coffee, you can tag along if you want.” 

“Do you even know how to drive?” Allison said in disbelief as she took Vanya’s wet towel and handed her another dry one. She shot her a smile in thanks.

“I know how to do everything.” Five scowled. “If you’re coming Vanya, meet me out there.” 

And then he was gone.

“I feel like we should try and stop him?” Klaus stood unsteadily and waved his hand through the space Five had just vacated.

Vanya squeezed the remaining water out of her hair before tying the damp strands back into a low ponytail. 

“He’s not actually 13 Klaus, we all saw his older body.” She reminded him as she chucked the second wet towel down on the table. 

“But he’s just so cute! I never remember looking that cute as a kid.” 

Allison laughed, “You did always more closely resemble a scarecrow, especially when you hit your growth spurt.”

“That hurts Allison! My inside feelings are very hurt right now!” Klaus pouted.

Vanya and Allison shared a look before they both rolled their eyes. 

“My caffeine ride awaits, and I shan’t keep him waiting.” 

She walked over to the door, nearly bumping into Diego as she walked past. Luckily Vanya managed to duck under his arm instead of face plant into his chest. She was expecting another sneering remark, but instead he just watched her with a blank face. Did he hate her more now? Less? She couldn’t tell. Dropping her head to avoid his gaze she moved past him and headed towards the main house door. 

…..

Five sat in the front seat of the old family car. It felt odd to be sitting in a drivers seat in the body he was currently in, thank God he could actually reach the peddles still, though he had needed to adjust the seat quite a lot to get to where he was comfortable. He had told Vanya he would wait for her, but he was feeling particularly impatient right now. 

He had thought about his siblings everyday for 45 years, how he missed them and how he would save them. But he guessed it was true what they said about rose tinted glasses. He had forgotten how…annoying they could be. Even as adults they acted childishly, throwing insults and punches around like they were going out of style. 

He ignored the part of him that was giddy with happiness to be around them again.

One good thing about their aimless chatter and squabbles was the more they talked and moved around the less like walking corpses they looked. His mind had started to bridge the gap between his 13-year-old siblings and the dead bodies he had found. It made being around them easier. 

The passenger car door opened and Vanya slipped into the seat next to him. She was the only exception. Five had always been privately very relieved he had never found Vanya’s dead body, oh sure there had been plenty of corpses burnt beyond recognition that could have been her, but he’d never had to dig her cold form out from under heavy rubble and broken glass. Never had to roll her into a shallow grave, or cover her too still face over with dirt. 

That made her the only one of his siblings he could look at without seeing double. 

“Griddy’s?” Five asked as he put the car in to first gear and released the handbrake. 

Vanya hummed in agreement, shooting him a smile as she put on her belt.

“Sounds good to me.”

They drove in silence. Five couldn’t help comparing the Vanya he knew at 13 with the one sitting next to him. She seemed…happier wasn’t the word he was looking for, but he didn’t know how else to describe it. He had seen her smile more in the last few hours than the entire year before he got trapped in the future. 

Vanya had never been a very emotive child, and next to say Klaus or Diego she had sometimes seemed almost robotic. Their Father had told them all when they were very young that Vanya suffered from extreme anxiety and had to go on medication for it. He had never noticed her acting like someone who was anxious all the time, but what did he know about mental health? When they all hit puberty a lot of changes happened. Luther shot up seemingly over night, Allison started buying make up, Klaus started buying make up and drugs, and Vanya started taking 2 tablets a day instead of 1. 

The change had been gradual, but some days it felt like Vanya had been barely there at all, a shadow compared to the vibrant personalities of the others. 

But now…since coming back to the past Five had seen her smile at him, and even laugh, she had gotten in between a fight between Luther and Diego for God’s sake! 

She seemed so alive. 

She also seemed like a mess. He had seen the tears in the library and the full body shake as she stood up to Luther. But he wasn’t going to judge, he wasn’t exactly the poster boy for a healthy mind himself these days. 

He had been weighing up her usefulness for quite a while now. It was why he had offered to bring her along for the coffee run. Although she was powerless she had always been smart, maybe she could offer some ideas? Be a sounding board for him? Until he fetched Deloris he had no one else he would really trust to listen to him.

He pulled into the parking lot for Griddy’s Donuts and turned off the engine. The entire place seemed empty, although its bright neon lights signified it to still be open. Vanya got out of the car, shivering slightly in the cold night air. With her wet clothes and damp hair it couldn’t have felt pleasant. 

“God I haven’t been here in years.” She muttered pushing open the door to the café, holding it open for Five to join her.

“I guess I shouldn’t ask you for the state of their coffee then.” He replied hopping up on to one of the stools and ringing the bell on the counter.

“As long as it’s hot and caffeinated, I don’t care.”

The door behind them swung open again and a man entered the shop. Middle aged, slightly overweight, wearing a work uniform of some kind. Five couldn’t spot any concealed weapon on him so made no move to discourage the man from sitting next to him.

The waitress walked out of the kitchen pulling a note pad out from her pocket. 

“Sorry, sink was clogged,” She laughed the forced laugh of someone who worked in the customer service industry, “So what’ll be?” 

“Erm two coffees please?” Vanya spoke up

“Can I get you or your husband anything else?” the lady asked. 

Vanya blinked twice “Who?” 

The waitress blushed. “Oh! I’m sorry I just assumed…when you said two coffees…” She gestured between Vanya and the man sitting next to Five.

“The other coffee is for me. And I’ll take it black.” Five pulled his lips back into a full smile. The waitress looked suitably off put.

“White coffee for me.” Vanya added looking amused at the facsimile of the cute kid smile. 

“I’ll err have a chocolate éclair?” The middle aged man said, looking confused.

“Right, I’ll just…get those for you.” The woman tucked her note pad into her apron and fetched the two mugs of coffee and the man’s éclair looking faintly bemused. 

Vanya pulled out a few notes of cash and handed them over, waving the man away when he reached for his own wallet. “Its ok, I’ve got yours.”

“huh, thanks lady.” He didn’t seem about to argue with the offer of free food.

Five took an appreciative sip of his coffee while Vanya wrapped her hands around hers and pulled it closer to her body.

“I don’t remember this place being such a shit hole.” He sighed over the rim of his mug. The man shot him a raised eyebrow but Five ignored it.

“We used to love it here as kids, do you remember?” Vanya replied “We’d always sneak out and come here, but we knew we wouldn’t have that much time until Dad found out so we’d try and eat as many donuts as we could in like an hour. I’ll never forget the sight of Diego puking up pink icing.”

“As I recall Vanya, you also puked.” Five took another sip of coffee.

“Not that time, I’m talking about the time we were 10.”

“Ah yes, Allison had you on that diet with her then didn’t she? I remember you spent that trip pouting when she told you donuts counted as carbs.” 

Vanya snorted out a laugh.

The man sitting next to them finished his éclair and walked out, but the door had barely shut behind him before it was being pushed open again. 

The hair on the back of Five’s neck stood on end.

In the reflection of the desk bell he made out 5 figures, holding guns and fully dressed for a fight. 

Shit.

“That was fast.”

Vanya looked up from her coffee and froze. The lights flickered.

“I thought I’d have more time before they found me.” Five continued, his tone conversational. He met his sister’s eyes. She looked pale and scared. He flickered his gaze to the other side of the counter and then back to her, and she gave a small nod.

“Okay, so let’s all be professional about this, yeah?” The armed leader said, “On your feet and come with us. They want to talk.”

“I’ve got nothing to say.” Five replied flippantly.

“It doesn’t have to go this way. Do you want this nice woman’s death on your conscience?” The man’s gun twitched in Vanya’s direction.

“That would be a mistake.” Five fingered the knife next to Éclair man’s plate, and turned to smile up at the thug. “But don’t worry, it’s the last one you’ll make.”

Five _ripped_ space apart and appeared behind the man, stabbing viciously into his neck with the blunted knife. He was pleased to see through the spray of blood Vanya throwing herself over the counter just in time to avoid the hail of bullets that ripped apart the stool she had been sat on. The man he’d stabbed screamed, his finger twitching on the trigger of his gun, sending shots towards his friends and the rest of the assassins ducked out of the way to avoid the friendly fire. Five used the confusion to jump to where Vanya was hiding. 

The lights were flickering like strobes now; a stray bullet had probably hit a wire or something. 

Vanya grabbed his arm and for a second Five thought she was going to demand answers _right now_ but instead she just pressed another knife into his hand squeezing him for a second before letting go.

Okay. He could work with this.

Five jumped to the other side of the room, lounging against a table.

“Hey Assholes!”

Bullets ripped through the table but Five was already gone, he watched from outside the café as the gunmen started to panic, pouring most of their clips into the area around the table. 

He waited until they stopped before knocking on the window, calling attention to himself again with a cheeky smile and wave. 

With every impossible movement he made the gunmen grew more panicked. Obviously they hadn’t been briefed on him before they’d taken the job. Amateurs.

It was time to wrap this up.

Five jumped again, appearing in front of one of the armed men, moving with deadly grace he shove his knife under his raised arm. Blood sprayed out in a shower and the man dropped with a scream. 

The next one went down easily having taken his attention off the fight to try to reload. Five used the strap of the gun around his neck to pull him backwards, nearly decapitating him with the force of his full body weight against the guy’s throat. 

Grabbing a lose pencil off the floor Five shoved it in to the next guys crotch. He ignored the howl of agony, instead using his other hand to Frisbee a plate across the room at the last gunman’s head. It smashed on impact knocking him over. 

Five pulled the pencil out with a squelch before shoving it into the man’s eye. His screams cut off in a gurgle. That was three down.

Knife in armpit and plate man both got to their feet shooting at Five from opposite sides of the room. He jumped into the in-between space of reality, ignoring the squeezing sensation with practiced ease. A second later he reappeared, just as both men slumped over dead, each one shot by the other. Silence descended over the café. 5 men killed in 30 seconds. He was getting rusty in his old age.

With a sigh he tore a tie from one of the men’s neck placing it around his own. He missed having one, and this one was a particularly nice shade of red.

Vanya stood slowly from where she had been crouched. In her hands she held a sharp pie knife.  
“Are they all dead?” She whispered.

A groan sounded from the floor, it came from the leader, the man who had threatened Vanya

Five walked over tucking his new tie into his vest. He leaned down placing a hand on both sides of the assassin’s head and twisted sharply. A loud crack shot through the room as the man’s neck snapped and he finally went still.

“They’re all dead.” He answered.

A tracking machine lay on the floor, on it a single red blip.

Well…that explained it. 

“May I?” Five held his hand out towards Vanya and he was rather impressed with how unhesitatingly she handed over the knife she was holding. She had just witnessed him kill 5 people. But she showed no fear of him turning the knife on her.

She wasn’t happy however when he drove the sharp blade into his own arm. 

“What are you doing?!” She quickly grabbed a hand-full of napkins and tried to stem the bleeding. He swatted at her hands and reached into the wound, finding the tracker and pulling it out with a grunt of pain. 

Vanya stared at the tracker in shock for a second.

“Ok, you’re really going to have to explain this later.” She finally said in a surprisingly even voice.

This time Five didn’t stop her when she wrapped the napkins around his arm and applied pressure. 

“So, house?”

“My place is closer, I’ll drive.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woop! Five and Vanya bonding time!
> 
> I'm sorry to those who wanted Vanya to kick butt here and go white violin on the bad guys, but you're gonna have to trust me when I say there is a reason Vanya is having trouble with her powers. 
> 
> Basically, Vanya has a lot of trauma associated with her powers, and the only time she was able to use them really well was when she was in a complete dissociative state (aka White violin!Vanya) Theres also the fact that her powers have only been used for destructive purposes so far, never protective. SO even though Vanya might have wanted to use her powers here, in my mind, a part of her is subconsciously keeping them tucked away in her for fear of destroying everything again.
> 
> Also there is the fact that the other siblings were trained from a very young age how to access their powers and channel them, you cant expect Vanya to be able to use hers with any skill when she only really has Leonards lessons to go off. 
> 
> Don't worry however dear reader! All these things will be addressed! Just not less than 48 hours since the world ended from Vanya's perspective. Shes improving quickly, but not _that_ quickly
> 
> Thanks again for all the reviews! I read and appreciate every one <3 This story is currently no.1 most commented on Umbrella Academy fic, and I owe it all to you guys! Thank you so much!


	9. Chapter 9

The clock on the wall in the library clicked as the hour hand slid into place on the Roman numeral number for 11. Allison sighed, and drained the remainder of her drink, setting the glass down with a gentle clink. Every sound seemed overly loud in the otherwise silence of the room. 

Diego and Klaus had left hours ago, and Vanya and Five had never come back from their coffee run. The house felt empty again, as empty as it had when she first walked in less than 24 hours ago. She had been one of the first ones of her siblings to arrive, even though geographically she lived the second furthest away. A late night plane ticket bought straight from the car on the way from the red carpet event she had been attending when she first heard the news. 

She didn’t know why she had rushed to get back so quickly. The urgency that had overcome her to grab any excuse to get on a plane and leave the life she had built up…well…

Maybe it wasn’t such as mystery after all.

She had made a complete mess of it.

Running back to her childhood home, back to the certainty of knowing that she was one of the good guys, a hero, the idea had been intoxicating. But as soon as she had seen her old room, seen the complicated mess of her siblings, seen Luther, she knew, there was no going back to that simple life of right and wrong. The world just didn’t work like that. It was only childhood innocence that had made it seem to. 

It was a lesson all of her siblings had seemingly learnt and it had left them bitter, the future and world their Father had promised them had been just another one of his lies. Well…most of her siblings had learnt that. 

Luther was…frustrating. As a teenager Allison had found his belief in Dad and the work they had once done captivating. It was a sign of Luther’s pure heart and true heroism. But that unbreakable will of his had turned crystalline, now instead of a man with unquestionable morals she saw a boy so inflexible and rigid in his beliefs he would risk alienating all the family he had left, in order to uphold the fantasy that Dad had been feeding him his entire life.

‘Miss Allison, burning the candle late I see?” Pogo hobbled into the room on his cane, giving her a warm smile.

“Just thinking Pogo, it’s weird being back.” Allison answered his smile with one of her own and gestured to the chair opposite her in an invitation.

The wizened monkey walked stiffly over and sat down letting out a sigh of relief as he did. 

“These old bones are not enjoying this weather I must say.”

“You’re not old Pogo, you’re distinguished.”

He chuckled, and rested his walking stick up against the table.

“That is very kind of you to say, my dear. I have missed having you children around the house I’ll admit, if for the baseless flattery if nothing else.” Pogo shifted in his chair slightly, “Actually I’m glad I found you here, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something.”

“Oh?” Allison asked.

“Yes, your sister, Miss Vanya, have you heard much from her these past few years?” Pogo’s face grew serious and she blinked in confusion. 

“Not really, I mean she used to send Clare birthday cards every year, but she never called or anything. I got the feeling she didn’t like remembering us that much. And after her book came out…I admit I didn’t really feel like talking to her either. But….I understand more now. Family is important and Vanya…well none of us ever treated her like she was.”

Pogo hummed to himself, his hairy face pinching into a troubled look. 

“I will admit that I am…concerned about her.” He eventually said. “She didn’t seem like herself and I’m worried…well that she may be in danger.”

Allison frowned.

“She seemed ok to me? Well slightly more nervous than I remember her being, but that’s just Vanya right? She’s always been shy and withdrawn. What did she do that has you so concerned?” Allison leaned forward and clasped her hands together in worry.

“ahh…well it’s more a feeling than anything else. We had a minor altercation earlier today but Master Klaus walked in before she could say anything. It may be nothing, an old man’s imagination, but I’d feel better if you were to keep an eye on her?” 

Allison bit her lip, taking in Pogo’s anxious body language.

“Of course I’ll look out for her, she’s my Sister, but Pogo, if you think something is wrong maybe you should just talk to her? It’s one of the biggest problems in this family, no one ever just sits down and…and _talks_!”

Pogo clasped his hands and sighed, his shoulder stooping. 

“Something we all picked up from your Father I’m afraid, my dear.” He stood with a grunt, reaching for his walking stick and giving her a sad smile. “You’ve grown in to a remarkable young woman Miss Allison, good night.” 

He then turned and hobbled out of the room, leaving Allison feeling no better than she had when he walked in. 

…..

Vanya had thought she had a pretty good idea of what was going to happen over the next 8 days, but a donut shop shoot out?

What the fuck?

Had this happened last time? The injury on Five’s arm matching the one she had patched up the first time implied that it had. That meant that her being there had changed _nothing_. She’d been useless during the fight. While Five had taken out each shooter with ruthless efficiency she had been trying desperately to concentrate, but her powers had refused to do anything more impressive than flicker the lights. Every time she had tried to bring a single sound to the forefront of her mind a gunshot had gone off or a man had screamed, distracting her. 

24 hours ago she had destroyed the moon, now it seemed the only thing her powers were any good for was shattering the occasional glass. 

The drive to her flat was quiet. Five sat staring out the passenger window, watching the lights of the city flash by. She wondered what he was going to tell her, how he was going to explain what just happened. Vanya knew that he had lived in the apocalyptic future, its what he had told her last time. He had never mentioned assassins or… or tracking implants! What was he wrapped up in? How had she not known about this? 

Would he have told her if she had been more supportive last time? He had come to her; his exact words had been _“I’ve decided you’re the only one I can trust.”_

Well. 

This time would be different. 

This time she was going to be worthy of the trust he had placed in her. 

….

“Did you know you don’t have locks on your windows?” 

Vanya sighed as she set down the bowl of chips she had fetched onto her coffee table. She had yet to see Five eat anything but a peanut butter and marshmallow sandwich since he’d got back, and if he was going to need alcohol to get through this conversation again, she was going to at least make sure he had _some_ kind of food in his stomach first. 

“It’s fine, I have a bat under my bed to fight off the would be rapists.”

“Really?” Five sounded unimpressed.

“No, you weirdo. I live on the second floor. Now sit down so I can disinfect that arm before it falls off.” 

Five rolled his eyes but sat, pulling up his sleeve as he did so. Vanya winced in sympathy at the sight of the wound, and started gently dabbing it with the alcohol solution she had grabbed from her bathroom. 

She felt Five’s eyes boring into the back of her bent over head as she finished cleaning his cut and applied a dressing.

“You’re being surprisingly calm about all this.” He said finally

“About what? The fact that my long lost brother is back, but looks like he did at 13? Or maybe about the fact that he is now apparently able to kill a 5-man squad all by himself? Or are you talking about how he had some kind of implant in his arm even though, until this afternoon he didn’t even exist in this body?” Vanya asked, picking up the bloody bits of cotton and left over napkin and wrapping them up in tissue. 

“Touché. Today’s been…weird huh.” Five rolled his sleeve back down and sat back in his chair with a tired sigh. 

“I think once I sleep everything will catch up with me, but for now…I’m gonna keep rolling with the punches. So if you have any other massive revelations to drop on me, now’s the time to do it.” Vanya went to the kitchen to wash her hands, before coming back and grabbing a chip out of the bowl. She gestured for Five to do the same and simply raised an eyebrow when he refused. Reluctantly he grabbed one.

“When I jumped forward and got stuck in the future, do you know what I found?” Five said quietly, his voice slightly hoarse. Vanya felt her insides clench in guilt, _her fault, all her fault._

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing. As far as I could tell, I was the last person left alive. I never figured out what killed the human race,” Vanya gritted her jaw and tried not to flinch, “but I did find something else. The date it happens.

The world ends in 8 days, and I have no idea how to stop it.”

Vanya stood shakily, and walked into the kitchen. She came back holding a bottle of rum and two glasses. In silence she poured out a double measure in each, handing one to Five before sitting down again.

“Alright. Start from the beginning.”

Five’s description of life in the apocalypse had been hard to listen to the first time, and that was with her having not believed him. But hearing it again, with the knowledge that not only did it happen, but also that she was the direct cause of it, was hell. 

Five’s voice was flat and emotionless as he described finding nothing but rubble for miles and miles, the feel of hunger and the trouble he had finding clean drinking water. 

“You’re were alone, all that time? I…I can’t imagine how hard that must have been.” Vanya swirled the last dregs of her drink around the bottom of her glass slowly. She’d felt very lonely growing up a lot of the time, excluded as she was from everything her siblings had done. But Five had been completely alone from the age of 13. Next to him, her issues of childhood abandonment felt petty and small. 

“Well...not completely alone, I had someone. Her name was Deloris.” Five drained his rum in a single gulp. “Also there was The Commission. That’s who those gunmen were hired by.”

Vanya leaned forward in interest. This was new.

“I thought you said you were the last human alive? Who are these commission people?” 

“I was. They didn’t come from the same time as me. They are an agency tasked with maintaining the timeline run by a woman called The Handler. My old boss.” Five was standing now, looking out of her window.

Vanya’s jaw fell open in shock. _Maintaining the timeline? What?_

“How is that even possible? Are you saying that other people can time travel?” 

“They have the technology, yes. They pick up people, lost souls across history, train them up and send them off. Their only purpose to remove threats to the timeline. Most of the time by assassination.”

Five still wasn’t looking at her and part of Vanya was happy for the chance to be able to rearrange her face into something that hopefully looked less like disbelief. 

“So you worked with these people, protecting the timeline? I don’t understand, why are they trying to kill you then?”

Five sighed heavily. 

“We had a small… disagreement. The Commission is of the belief that the apocalypse has to happen. They’ll do anything to keep that future.”

Vanya’s heart felt like it was being squeezed by a vice and she tasted metal. 

There was a whole organisation out there trying to ensure Vanya destroyed the world?

It was like she was back inside that awful room, the only sound she could hear was her pulse beating hard against her eardrums.

Was it destiny? Did she have no choice in the end? Did every path she take just lead to death and destruction? 

7 billion people dead.

And the blood was always going to be on her hands.

She was a weapon. Fated to be used. 

Her mind flashed to the faces of those gunmen at Griddy’s. Then to the two maniacs in the masks that had invaded the house. Finally to the entire death squad her siblings had fought off while she had been busy building enough energy to crack the moon like a fucking egg.

How had she never wondered who those people were? 

They hadn’t been there to stop her. They had been there to _protect_ her.

She couldn’t breathe.

_She couldn’t BREATHE!_

Vanya barely registered Five’s face appearing in front of her, his lips moved as he said something and a frown appeared on his face. Small hands grasped hers firmly and a part of her registered that he still had some blood under his nails. 

She tried to concentrate on the pressure of his hands and slow her breathing. She had to regain control before she used her powers. She wouldn’t be the cause of Five’s death. Not again.

Suddenly a sharp sting flashed across her face followed by a hot burn. The pain cut through the pressure in her chest like a knife through butter and she felt her lungs fill deeply in a gasp instead of the shallow breaths she had been taking.

She coughed and shuddered as oxygen washed through her, her ears popped and sound returned, as if she had been on an airplane. 

“Vanya. You with me?” Fives voice was loud to her newly returned hearing, but she nodded shakily.

She began to tremble, her muscles and chest aching like an elephant had sat on her. She felt like she had just run a marathon. 

“D-did you slap me?” She managed to say through chattering teeth. Her back felt slick with cold sweat.

“You weren’t responding, and I didn’t know how else to snap you out of it.” Five was still crouched in front of her, his face unreadable. 

“I-I’m sorry.” To her shame she felt tears prick at her eyes. “I d-don’t know what just happened, I…I’m…”

Vanya trailed off. She didn’t know how to even begin explaining. 

“Do you want me to get you your tablets?” he asked 

She flinched. Hard. 

Well there was no covering up that reaction. Going by Five’s face he had definitely caught it. 

“I-I’ve stopped taking them.” She finally muttered out.

Five stood with a sigh and sat down across from her again. He observed her as she twisted her hands together. Finally he spoke.

“I’m not going to tell you what to do with your life Vanya. I’m not Luther. What you do, or don’t do, has nothing to do with me.” Five looked down at his own hands before continuing. “The world is ending soon, and that is scary. I don’t blame you for freaking out. But...I need help to stop this. And… I don’t think you’re going to be able to. I should never have thrust this on you. You’re ordinary. You should just live your life.” 

As Five talked Vanya felt tears spill on to her cheeks. 

He was cutting her out. Again. She had tried so hard but her broken emotions had fucked everything up. 

“I want to help! I can do better!”

“Its late, and I’m sure you need sleep.” Five stood, picking up his blazer.

“Five…please…I just got you back.” Her voice trailed off as he paused at the door. “Just…stay here tonight, I’ve got extra blankets and pillows.”

She gestured at the couch.

“Please.”

Five looked at her for a second, before nodding.

“Okay.”

Vanya let out a breath in relief. “Okay.”

She quickly got up, clearing away the empty glasses and bowl of chips, pulling a blanket off the back of the sofa and laying it out for him.

She stood there for a second awkwardly, before walking backwards towards her room.

“If you need anything during the night let me know, ok? And we’ll talk more tomorrow?”

Five gave her a small smile.

“Okay. Goodnight Vanya.”

“Goodnight Five.”

She gently closed her bedroom door and leaned against it.

A minute passed before she heard her front door open and shut.

Vanya slumped to the ground and started to cry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yikes...well...that happened! 
> 
> Okay okay guys! Put away the pitchforks! 
> 
> So I know that's not how people wanted this scene to go down, but you guys are going to have to trust me when I say that this is a big turning point for Vanya and for how Five perceives her. Rewatching the show, it becomes pretty obvious the amount of shit Vanya's siblings throw her way, from careless words to full on dismissiveness. We are finally going to see how a changed more confident and emotional Vanya will deal with this. 
> 
> Also disclaimer! Slapping people having panic attacks is not recommended! Five did _not_ know what he was doing and so reacted in a way pretty standard for the little emotionally repressed assassin man he is. Pain can sometimes help people and shock them into breathing in if they are holding their breath, but again I do not recommend it. Giving the person space and talking to them gently can help a lot more. But Five don't know shit bout that. 
> 
> Also jeez you guys! The amount of reviews on the last chapter! I woke up to a lot of emails and they make me overwhelmed in the best way!
> 
> A personal side note just added here at the end, my writing has slowed down considerably and so updates may soon start to become every other day instead of daily. I'm also struggling right now quite a lot with my own mental health, I have a doctors appointment next week to see about getting me some help, but for now it is affecting my motivation and the speed of my writing, for which I am sorry. 
> 
> Much love to all of you <3


	10. Chapter 10

Ben looked up at the feeling of the world snapping back into full focus. A few seconds later Klaus began to mumble and groan from his position on the sofa a few feet away. Looks like the drugs had finally worn off. 

Ben sighed and made himself as comfortable as a dead person could as he waited for Klaus to actually wake up. It wouldn’t take long; his brother’s ability to hold back the nightmares without drugs was shot to pieces, and the crystal clearness of the world around Ben let him know that there was nothing of Klaus’s last night dose left in his bloodstream. 

The moaning became louder, turning into pained whines and hitched breaths as Klaus hugged himself. With a sudden gasp he woke up, throwing himself into a sitting position. 

Ben remained seated as his brother cowered, throwing panicked looks around the room. 

With as voice a normal as he could make it, Ben spoke up.

“You know you talk in your sleep?” 

Klaus panted, as reality finally seemed to click into place for him. He didn’t spare Ben even a glance before he threw himself towards his clothes and started riffling through them. 

“There’s no point, you’re out of drugs.” Ben said calmly 

“Shut your piehole Ben!” Klaus snapped. 

He then slumped and dropped his coat having found the pockets to be empty. 

“Said with love.” He added in lieu of an apology, blowing him a kiss across the room.

Ben snorted softly, even when itching for a high, Klaus was still unable to be malicious. He just didn’t have it in him. 

It was one of the reasons Ben kept coming back, when any sane person would have given up on him by now, even if he _was_ their only connection to the life they had lost. 

Ben watched as Klaus went back to rummaging fruitlessly. 

“I’ve got a crazy idea! Why not try starting your day with a glass of orange juice? Or some eggs!” 

“Can’t smoke eggs.” Klaus sniffed, wiping away a few left over tears before pulling out and lighting a cigarette with shaking hands. 

Ben observed with a heavy heart as Klaus began searching through the cabinets that lined the walls, looking for valuables. 

The sound of someone entering the room pulled his attention away. He was surprised to see that it was Vanya, and she looked terrible. Her eyes had deep shadows under them and her entire posture was closed in, like she was expecting a blow at any second. 

“Klaus?” Ben snapped his fingers over his shoulder trying to get his brother’s attention. “Oi, deafo.” 

“You know that’s very rude Ben, I swear I taught you better than that! Then again…Dad always said I was a terrible influence. Hey do you think this is solid gold?” He turned around holding a large antique plate that he promptly dropped when he spotted Vanya. 

Klaus fumbled with his hands for a second before settling on one behind his head and the other leant against the wall in fake casualness, as if he could block his sister’s view to the cabinet he had just been pilfering through.

“Well if it isn’t one of my favourite sisters! Back again so soon I see!” 

“Who were you talking to?” Vanya’s voice was rough, but behind the fragileness Ben thought he heard a small hint of hope.

“Oh you know me, always talking to myself! I’m told the people I shared a room with in rehab found it very charming.” Klaus waved his hand around airily. 

“Oh.” The hope was gone, replaced by a dead tone that concerned Ben. 

Seeing Vanya like this was wrong. Sure she’d never been ‘happy’ when they’d been kids, but this was something else. He was unnerved to see the similarities between her now and Klaus at his worst. The defeated posture, the evidence of a sleepless night, the slightly manic look in the eyes which set off all of Ben’s alarm bells after years of following his borderline suicidal brother around. 

“Maybe you should just tell her? She could believe you.” Ben said slowly, sitting forward in his chair.

Klaus ignored him, and instead bent down and picked up the gold plate, making a show of dusting it off and placing it back in the cabinet.

Vanya stood there and watched him, empty eyed. 

Ben stood up and placed himself directly in front of his Brother.

“You haven’t seen any of them in years, now could be a really good time to share the fact that I’m still around. You’re being selfish Klaus.” 

Klaus hissed under his breath like an angry cat. 

“Fine! But honestly? Guilt trip much?” He finally whined out, Ben could see the uncertainty behind his words though; the fear of not being believed had always weighed heavy on his mind. 

Klaus spun back around and faced their sister, putting on his best ‘serious’ face. Unfortunately the gravity of it was ruined slightly by the fact he was only wearing a pair of colourful underwear. 

“Soooo Vanya, I might have been lying just a tinsy tiny bit about not being able to summon any dead folk in years. Though honestly it was more a lie by admission, as I didn’t actually say anything you guys just all _presumed_ -“ Klaus began to ramble.

“It’s Ben isn’t it?” She interrupted him; a spark of life took root in her eyes.

“Well...that was easy.” Klaus said numbly, blinking in shock.

“Where is he?” 

Klaus, still wearing a stunned look on his face, gestured to where Ben now stood. Vanya approached the area slowly, checking with Klaus to make sure she wasn’t about to walk through him. 

Ben watched as she stopped a few feet away from him and stood there for a few seconds awkwardly.

“Ask her if she’s ok.” He finally shot in Klaus’s direction, looks like it was down to him to get this conversation started.

“Oh, oh no,” he groaned out loud, “I’ve had the sudden realisation how every conversation involving you and her is going to go. I am too sober to play Chinese whispers right now.

“Stop whining and do it.” Ben rolled his eyes. “You know you’re happy she believes you so stop being so dramatic.”

“Urgh _fine_! Sweet, sweet Ben, wants to know if you are okay. Because that’s just how sweet he is, butter wouldn’t melt amiright!” Klaus put his hands under his chin and fluttered his eyelashes. 

“You can also tell her I said you were an idiot.”

“I’m not saying that! Its slander! Also she already knows.”

Vanya looked overwhelmed and her eyes kept darting between Klaus and the space near Ben.

“He’s asking if I’m ok?” Ben saw her throat bob as she swallowed, blinking away the moisture that was building in her eyes. 

Klaus flopped backwards onto the sofa throwing one arm over his eyes and the other into the air with a big thumb’s up. 

“I’m…” Ben watched as she stared at her twisting hands.

I’m...frankly overwhelmed and sleep deprived and feeling too many stupid emotions but mostly I’m…I’m really happy you’re here Ben.” Vanya spilled out finally, her voice growing soft towards the end.

Ben had complicated feelings about his Sister; he had seen first hand the damage her book had done to Klaus. The callousness of her words had shocked him at the time. But seeing her here, drained and lost and emotional, he couldn’t find it in himself to be angry at her. She had just been another victim of their Dad and had made some stupid decisions out of anger and grief. 

He looked over at Klaus’s mostly naked prone body. It wasn’t like she was the only one to do so.

If he were corporeal Ben would have wrapped her in a hug, instead he just sighed.

Klaus peaked out from under his arm and groaned. 

“He’s making that puppy dog eye look he does when he wants to hug you but can’t, trust me I’m very familiar with it.”

Vanya let out a watery chuckle. Then she paused for a second before slowly holding her hand out palm up.

_He was sitting next to Vanya holding her hand as they read a book together. He had always been a slightly faster reader than her, so she would squeeze his hand every time she had reached the end of the page so he would know when to turn it. They’d been there for hours, and would be there for a while longer. Slow Sunday evenings was their time._

Ben blinked the memory away. They’d stopped doing that after Five had disappeared. Father had upped training times and Vanya had been left even further behind.

Ben reached out his own ghostly hand and placed it on top of hers. He knew she would feel no sensation, nothing to prove he was near her. But a small smile broke across her face anyway. 

“I’m going to help him.” She whispered, her voice barely loud enough for Ben to catch, “I’ll do whatever I can, I swear to you Ben, you won’t have to fight for him alone anymore.”

Her eyes darted over to Klaus for a second and Ben felt his still, dead heart lift for the first time in over a decade.   
…..

Luther stood in Allison’s room, sucking on his juice pouch and feeling absolutely confused by the conversation that had just happened. 

It wasn’t anything new; Allison had always left him feeling confused and awkward since he was a teenager. But what did she mean about him turning Dad’s death in to a mission? 

It frustrated him to no end that all of his siblings were so caught up in their petty lives that they couldn’t see what was right in front of them. They had a duty to their father, the man who had raised them, given them _everything_ they had. If there was even the slightest chance that someone had been responsible for his death, then it was down to them to bring that person to justice. Just like they had been taught their entire lives. 

But no one else was even willing to admit that there was even anything suspicious going on. 

The juice pouch crinkled in his hand as his grip tightened unconsciously. He noticed pretty quickly however when the remaining apple beverage shot down the back of his throat making him choke slightly.

He turned coughing and spluttering, right into the face of Pogo, who had been standing in the corridor behind him. 

“I am…so sorry.” Luther said with wide eyes.

“Master Luther,” Pogo started seemingly electing to ignore what just happened, to Luther’s relief, “an item of your Father’s has gone missing, a box containing extremely important documents.”

“What! When did this happen?” 

“I am unsure, sometime yesterday I believe. I had first considered Master Klaus to be the thief, but…if there is any chance it wasn’t him then…I’m afraid the information contained in that box could be used to do this family irreparable harm.”

Luther felt his pulse pick up and that clear headed feeling that he only felt when on a mission descend over him.

“Has anyone besides me or my brothers and sisters been in the house since Dad died?”

“Not that I’m aware of Master Luther.”

“So you’re saying one of us stole this box.” This wasn’t a coincidence, he was sure of it. Dad’s missing monocle, and now this? 

“I came to you because I know you can be trusted to keep a clear head about this. And you can also be trusted to understand how important it is that we get this box back before the contents can be read.”

“Of course Pogo. Do you have any suspicions about who would want this information?”

Pogo cleared his throat and for a second his eyes looked impossibly sad.

“I have one.”

….

Five’s anger boiled under his skin, making one of his eyes twitch and his lip rise in a snarl. Being in a child’s body was making this a lot more difficult than it needed to be. 

Fucking MeriTech. 

A single name, that’s all he needed. One name and he could stop the apocalypse. 45 years of planning and living just to survive and he was being stopped at the last hurdle by his own goddamn body.

He wished he had smashed that annoying doctor’s head through the wall. It would have made him feel infinitely better. 

_‘Young man’_

He had at least 30 years on that idiot. How dare he patronise him. And now he was wasting valuable time having to enlist an ‘adult’ so he could even get his foot into the front door. Deloris would see the humour in the situation, but then, she’d always been more patient than him. 

Five ripped space apart and stepped into the house he had grown up in, circumventing the front door entirely. As he did so he went over the list of his siblings in his head, trying to work out who’d be the best one to take as his ‘parental figure’.

Vanya, his mind provided for him straight away, but Five slapped it down. It’d been a mistake to tell her about the future. He’d got so caught up in having his sister back, that he’d forgotten that she was a civilian. Powerless and ordinary. On top of that she was seemingly unstable right now. He didn’t know how long she’d been off her meds, but in the end it was a moot point. He wouldn’t be involving her in this. She was too fragile. 

Luther was right out, he’d require too much of an explanation. Diego was out for the same reason. Allison? Her power would be useful but he doubted she would still be around, didn’t she have a family to get back to? That left…  
Five stopped and groaned.

Klaus.

Well. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. He imagined Deloris’s laughing face, a single hand rising to cover her twitching lips, but her eyes would always give away her mirth. They would glitter with an amused light that so clearly said that she had found whatever he had been doing hilarious. She would have enjoyed watching him try and wrangle his brother. 

His heart ached in his chest.

It seemed no matter where he was in time, the future or the past; he was always going to be missing someone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A small break from Vanya's POV to give a bit of insight about what's going on with the rest of the Sibs.
> 
> You guys didn't think there would be any consequences to Vanya almost going White Violin on Pogo's ass? Of course there is ;D Pogo is definitely suspicious of Vanya and with the book containing the info about her powers going missing right around the time she's seemingly started to redevelop them? Yeaaah, he totally think Vanya stole the box.
> 
> And now he's brought Luther's attention to her odd behaviour....I'm sure nothing bad can come of this....;D
> 
> Thank you to everyone who left supportive comments on the last chapter, they mean a lot <3
> 
> Next chapter will be back to Vanya's POV and we'll finally see the fallout from Five walking away from her again, so stay tuned!


	11. Chapter 11

Knowing that Ben was around improved Vanya’s mood exponentially. The lost feelings she had been battling since the night before had abated somewhat with the knowledge that she could still change things. Sitting there with Klaus and Ben proved that the future wasn’t set in stone. Klaus hadn’t shared the news about Ben with her last time, this time he had. It wasn’t a massive change, but it helped. She still felt as though she could wring Five’s neck if given the chance, but listening to Klaus and Ben bicker was soothing in a way it hadn’t been when she was a child. Of course she could only hear one side of the conversation, but she felt she knew Ben well enough to have a vague idea of what he might be saying in response. 

“You nag like a mother hen you know that Ben. I _know_ what I need and it’s somewhere in this room! Some of Dad’s junk must be worth something, urgh why did the man like wood so much, who wants a trophy made out of _wood_?” 

Klaus was sweeping around the room in a particularly dramatic manner; he’d taken one of the throws from off the back of a sofa and was wearing it like a toga. There was definitely a manic energy about him this morning, and Vanya didn’t quite know how to go about fulfilling her promise to Ben. How _did_ one stop their estranged brother from taking drugs when he’d been doing it since he was 13. 

“Have you eaten yet Klaus?” She found herself saying, as if a cooked breakfast could fix this.

“Wow! Are you sure you can’t hear Ben, cos you’re already starting to sound like him!” he replied, frowning at her. 

Vanya threw a confused look over to where Klaus had been directing most of his tirade. 

“If you’re gonna try and throw secret looks at him, you’re gonna have to aim a bit lower sister dear. He’s not that tall.” Klaus continued, rolling his eyes. 

Vanya was excused from answering when Five suddenly appearing in the middle of the room with a familiar ‘whump’ noise. 

“Klaus, get dressed, I need your adult body for something.” 

“Sorry, come again?” Klaus blinked.

“Five!” If Vanya was surprised by the angry tone of her voice it was nothing compared to Five, who actually jumped slightly and turned, looking like a guilty little boy. 

“Where the hell have you been?! Yes I know you’re an adult-“ She cut him off as his mouth opened and he started to scowl. “and you’re allowed to go wherever you damn well please. That was never in question. What _is_ in question is you leaving my flat! After saying you would stay!” 

Vanya wasn’t any taller than Five when she stood up but that was fine, she didn’t want to tower over him, she wanted to shout in his face. She hadn’t realised just how betrayed she had felt by his disappearing act until he stood in front of her. Old Vanya would have walked away. New Vanya was about to set some things straight between her and her long lost brother. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Klaus sit down next to Ben’s space on the other sofa. His eyes were wide and his mouth was slightly ajar. 

“I remember you distinctly saying that you were surprised with how well I was taking everything, but as soon as I have a freak out because you had just told me that _the world ends in a week_ you leave?! What the fuck?!” Vanya ground out, pinning Five down with her glare. 

“The world ends when now?” Klaus’s voice piped up from across the room but she ignored him.

“You do not get to keep me away from this Five! I said I was going to help you and I am. So get your head out of your ass and stop acting like a complete dick!”

The room descended into silence. Vanya’s chest was heaving slightly but she felt….good? The release of emotion hadn’t overwhelmed her or drowned her. She had felt in control the entire time, and even though she’d wanted to throttle her brother, at no point had she worried that she was going to explode and send him flying backwards. 

Five’s mouth was hanging open slightly as he stared at her. Then to her shock he let out a little chuckle. She heard him mutter something under his breath that sounded like ‘fragile my ass’ before he looked her straight in the eye.

“Okay. You’re right. It’s your decision and if you want to help, I’m not going to stop you. I was treating you like a child, and I shouldn’t have. But you won’t be following me everywhere and getting in the way, ok? I can’t be worrying about keeping you safe and unshot while also saving the world. Do we have an agreement?” 

His voice had turned harsh by the end of his sentence and Vanya knew she wouldn’t be able to change his mind anymore today. That was fine. Small steps. 

“Okay.” She nodded firmly. 

“Wait wait wait, what’s going on?” Klaus waved his arm in the air pulling attention back to himself. “Five needs my body? And Vanya is now assertive? _And_ the world is ending? I don’t know what is shocking me more right now.” 

Five huffed “I don’t need your _body_ , I need someone who looks like an adult.”

“No no, I distinctly remember you popping in,” Klaus made a poof movement with his hands, “and saying ‘Klaus I need your adult body’. Which…I mean…that sounds dodgy right? Am I the only one who thinks that sounds dodgy?” 

He turned to look at Ben’s space. A second passed and then he pulled a face before turning back to Five. 

“Though I guess this world ending news is also pretty important and should be focused on.”

Vanya could guess what Ben had said about Klaus’s priorities. 

“How about we go downstairs, get some food and coffee and discuss this over breakfast like the actual adults we’re all supposed to be here.” Vanya sighed.

Klaus turned to look at her.

“Seriously who are you and what happened to the meek robot person I used to call a sister?” 

Vanya scowled. “Now, Klaus!”

“Okay okay jeez! New Vanya is moodier then old Vanya that’s for sure.”

….

15 minutes later, the 4 of them (counting Ben, whom Vanya assumed was joining them) were sitting at the kitchen table sipping cups of coffee (Vanya had brought some grounds from her flat) as Mom bustled around them, serving up eggs and bacon. 

Vanya took a long sip of her hot drink, sighing as the caffeine started doing its magic on her insides. Five was staring at the top of his mug seemingly lost in thought and Klaus was lighting up another cigarette, tapping the excess ash into an empty saucer that Mom had placed in front of him. 

Five had just finished describing the oncoming apocalypse again for Klaus, who had taken it pretty well all things considered.

“I thought Dad had just used the threat of the apocalypse to make us do the dishes.” Klaus finally broke the silence, grinding the last of his cigarette into the plate.

“Me too.” Five replied, sighing a bit into his cup. 

“Okay. So lets do something about this. Why do you need someone who looks like an adult?” Vanya asked. Technically she knew that the apocalypse should no longer be an issue, what with her being aware of her powers. But with the new knowledge that there were people out there trying to get her to do it…well Vanya wasn’t going to take any risks. 

“Credibility.” Five frowned and took a swig of his coffee. “I need to get some information, but looking like a 13 year old is a detriment.” 

“What is this information?” Vanya asked, smiling at Mom as she deposited a plate of food in front of her. Mom’s returning smile was blinding, if a little blank. Vanya wondered if in the other timeline they had ever figured out what was wrong with her.

“A name. I just need the name of whoever this eye belongs to.” Five reached into his pocket and pulled out a glass eyeball wrapped in a old dusty handkerchief.”

Vanya felt lost, what did a person with a glass eye have to do with her causing the apocalypse? Leonard had lost an eye but had never had the chance to get a prosthetic. Could this eye have belonged to him in another timeline? What if it wasn’t him? Could there be someone else out there who had been working behind the scenes to cause that evening at the concert hall to happen?

“So let me get the details straight, we go to this place and pretend to be your dear old parents so that you can get this name?” Klaus leant back in his chair, one hand waving a piece of bacon around.

“Yeah, something like that.”

“But what’s our cover story?

“What? What are you talking about?” Fives eyebrow rose in confusion.

“I mean, were Vanya and I really young when we had you? Like 16? A childhood romance that resulted in an unplanned pregnancy, but we couldn’t bare to get rid of you, so we ran away from home and got married, but now 14 years later we can barely stand each other and we’re only staying together out of bitterness and not wanting to prove our parents right all those years ago.”

Vanya and Five stared at their brother.

“What a disturbing glance into that thing you call a brain.”

“Is that anyway to talk to your Papa! You deal with him honey, I can’t work with him when he’s acting like this.” Klaus got to his feet and huffily walked out of the kitchen.

“Put on a suit, use one of Dad’s if you have to.” Five called out after him.

“Well. I’m sure this is going to go well.” Vanya finished her coffee, putting aside her questions and theories for now and making the decision to just wait and see how this panned out.

….

Being strung up and tortured was not something Syd had ever thought he would have to deal with. Being a tow truck driver and torture were not circles that usually overlapped. But the two psychos in front of him didn’t seem to be aware of that.

“I swear, I’m not the person you’re looking for!” He sobbed, tears, sweat, mucus and blood mixing on his face as he whimpered.

The two talked for a minute, the big guy taking bites out of Syd’s tuna sandwich between words.

“Was anyone else with you in the diner last night?” The terrifying women eventually turned and asked. 

“I don’t know, just the waitress and some woman and her kid.” Syd spoke quickly, hoping that they’d realise they’d got the wrong man and let him go.

“A woman and her kid? Elaborate.” The huge man commanded. 

“-I-I don’t know, uh.. the kid he was weird, drank coffee and swore like a sailor. H-his mom…the way they talked to each other…it was like they grew up together? Said something about coming there when they had both been young…”

The two of them walked away for a second talking before the woman came back.

“Can you remember anything else about the kid and the woman?”

“N-no we didn’t talk! W-wait what are you doing?” Syd trembled as the woman attached the two jump cables to his ears.

“Jump starting your memory.” She dialled up the power and Syd started to scream as his mind became hot fire. 

An eternity later the fire stopped.

“A-all I remember is the kid calling the woman by her first name, i-it was something Slavic or Russian sounding, that’s all that I remember I swear!” Syd cried out, sobbing heavily between words.

“What was the name?”

….

 

Vanya sat and watched Five try and get around a Doctor’s confidentiality clause with the help of Klaus. It wasn’t going well. 

She had forgotten that although Five was very smart, (he’d always been leagues ahead of the rest of them) he also hadn’t had to deal with society or its rules from the age of 13. If his plan to get the name out of this doctor was to demand it and be vaguely intimidating, she didn’t think they were going to get anywhere soon. In fact they were more likely to be arrested, and unlike Five, neither Klaus nor her could just teleport their way out of a jail cell.

Five had stood up by this point and was snarling into the placid doctor’s face, Vanya was just about to drag him away apologising profusely and try and persuade Five that they needed to find another way to get this name, when Klaus suddenly spoke up.

“And what about _my_ consent?” 

“Excuse me?” The doctor looked as baffled as Vanya felt.

“Who gave you permission to lay your hands on _my son_!” her brother continued, his voice turning watery as fake tears started to gather in his eyes.

“What?” Vanya, the doctor and Five spoke at the same time.

“You heard me!” Klaus continued, really getting into the part.

“I didn’t touch your son!” The doctor exclaimed.

“Oh, really? Then how did he get that swollen lip then?”

“He doesn’t have a swollen l-“ 

The doctor was cut off as Klaus stood suddenly and punch Five straight across the face. The hit connected with a _thwack_ and Five’s head snapped to one side as he let out a gasp of pain. 

Vanya sprung to her feet as well, confused and concerned. 

“I want it. Name please. Now.” Klaus said in a singsong voice.

The doctor’s eyes were wide.

“You’re crazy!”

Klaus chuckled, “You’ve got no idea.”

The next moment Klaus had picked up the snow globe and smashed it on to his head.

What! What was he doing?! Even Five looked shocked now.

“UGH! God! That hurt!” Klaus clenched his fists as blood trickled down from his hairline.

The doctor leapt for his desk phone, frantically dialling numbers.

“I’m calling secur-“

Klaus snatched the phone out of his grasp before he could complete the dialling and brought it up to his own bleeding face.

“There’s been an assault! In Mr. Big’s office and we need security, now! Shnell!” 

Everything finally clicked in to place for Vanya and she felt a small smile slide on to her face. Klaus you genius madman. 

Five was also looking at Klaus with a small amount of awe on his face, which soon turned smug as Klaus listed his demands at the doctor. 

Vanya felt almost bad for the man, as he seemed to be in quite a bit of shock. Obviously he’d never had someone fake an assault and try and pin it on him before. 

He led the three of them over to a file cabinet and started flicking through the contents quickly, every so often shooting a panicked glance at Klaus as if to make sure he wasn’t about to open a vein right there in the office just to pin it on him. Every time he did so Klaus would give him a smile or a wink and it worked to unnerve the doctor even more. Vanya kept her eyes on the surroundings and anytime anyone looked across at them she would shoot them her blandest smile.  
The one that said ‘nothing to see here’. 

Eventually, the doctor pulled a file loose and started to flick through it. 

“Oh. That’s strange?” the baffled tone of the doctor had Vanya leaning forward trying to glimpse into the file.

“What?” Five demanded.

“The eye hasn’t been purchased by a client yet.”

“Shit.” Vanya swore tiredly. Five looked as though he was grinding his teeth together. 

“What does that mean?” Klaus asked.

“It mean’s we’re too early.” Vanya answered. She spotted a couple of security guards looking over at them curiously and grabbed both of her brother’s by their arms. “I think we should go, the information we need isn’t here.”

Five growled angrily, pulling his arm out of her grip as he stalked towards the exit. Vanya and Klaus followed behind.

They made it back outside without alerting the building’s security, which Vanya was thankful for, it didn’t look as though Five was in the best state of mind to help them fight their way out. 

“So now what?” Klaus sat down on the steps outside the building, stretching out his long legs. 

Vanya pulled out some tissues from her pocket and began dabbing his cut forehead, picking out small chunks of glass as she went. Five was pacing back and forth in front of them agitated. 

“Five?” Vanya asked quietly when he had been silent for a while.

Her shortest sibling spun around and faced her and Klaus. He took in the both of them as they sat there, looking up at him. And for the life of her Vanya couldn’t read what was going on behind his blank face.

“There are some things I need to do.” He finally said, sticking his hands in his pockets.

“Want to share with the class?” Vanya asked

“I...I need to get an outside opinion. I’ll meet you guys back at the house.” 

And with that he was gone. 

Vanya stared blankly at the space he had just filled before turning to Klaus. He was looking slightly put out but the manic energy that had filled him since that morning hadn’t abated at all, in fact it looked like his twitching had even gotten a little worse. 

Vanya sighed before wrapping a single arm around her Brother’s waist in a side hug. She felt him stiffen slightly from surprise and pull away, but he stopped himself, for which Vanya was thankful.

“You were great in there by the way. I know Five thinks so too, you should have seen his face, I’ve never seen him look so smug.” She chuckled.

“Well…I am pretty good.” Klaus replied with a smile. 

“I’m sure Ben agrees with me, you were a big help.” Vanya added quietly.

With how close she was sitting to her brother, she felt as he jerked slightly in surprise.

“It’s still weird that you know about Ben ya know.” He finally said, “I tried telling everyone about him when it first happened, but everyone was so anxious to just leave, to get away from Dad. They didn’t listen.”

“You didn’t tell me?” Vanya felt that hurt space behind her ribs, the part that was barely starting to scab over, start aching.

“Yeah…but you were…. you. You never involved yourself with us. I know Dad wasn’t exactly big on you being a part of the team. But we all used to be a lot closer once.”

“I know.” Vanya whispered. The last time one of her siblings had confronted her about her withdrawnness, she had blamed everything on Dad. But Allison had been right, she was an adult now, the only thing that had kept her away from her siblings was her. 

“Lunch on me?” Vanya asked finally, trying to inject a bit more cheer into her voice.

“Actually…I’ve also got some things to take care off. You know…shopping…I’m running low on…toilet roll and …milk.” Klaus stood, pulling away from Vanya.

“Oh. Okay. Well...I’ll see you back at the house then?”

“Absolutely, gotta get in some proper sibling bonding before the world ends right?” Klaus said cheerily. He started to walk away from her, before spinning back around. “Oh actually I don’t have any change on me right now, I don’t suppose I could borrow some?”

Vanya felt her smile grow wooden and she felt a heavy weight settle in her chest. Was Klaus looking for drug money?

“I-I err don’t actually have any change on me right now, sorry.” She finally said, her bright tone definitely more false than it had been.

“Ahh well never mind.” He spun around with a sigh. “Be seeing you later! Toodles!”

Vanya watched as Klaus sauntered out of sight.

Part of her wanted to stop him, make him come home with her so she could make sure he didn’t get his hands on any drugs. But the other part of her didn’t want to push too hard too soon and lose him. 

She consoled herself with the fact that Ben would be there, whatever Klaus got into. Ben…who couldn’t physically stop him or do anything but let his disapproval be known. 

Shit. This was going to be harder than she thought it’d be

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We have some Five, Vanya and Klaus time! Yay!
> 
> Vanya won't be taking things lying down anymore, it was so much fun to have her yell at Five, and honestly he deserved it. Hopefully he'll start looking for help more now ;)
> 
> I'm afraid to announce that the days of daily posting are now pretty much behind us, But do not fret dear readers! Chapter lengths are nearing 3000 words average now :)
> 
> Thank you again so much for all the lovely reviews! I read every one <3
> 
> As you wont be hearing from me everyday on here anymore, feel free to come follow me on tumblr (I know a few of you have already found me)   
> cloud-elemental.tumblr.com


	12. Chapter 12

By the time Vanya went back to her apartment it was already dark, she had thought about going back to the house, but trying to sleep in her old tiny room with her old tiny bed…no…she wouldn’t be doing that anytime soon. 

With a tired sigh she unlocked her front door and pushed her way inside. The front room was dark, so she blindly felt along the wall looking for her light switch. She had barely taken a step into her apartment when she felt something crinkle under her foot. Finally finding the light, she flicked in on, bending down to look at what she had stood on. 

It seemed to be a folded piece of paper.

What?

She dropped her keys on the kitchen counter and sat on her sofa, unfolding the letter as she did. 

Vanya’s hand tightened on the paper, the grip growing stronger and stronger as she read, until it seemed the letter would rip under the pressure from it.

It was from Leonard.

A polite note under her door about her missing the lesson he had tried to book (she hadn’t even got the message this time or confirmed it and he’d still turned up?). The note had his number listed on it and he had friendlily asked her to give him a call when she was less busy. 

Her heart was racing again, but Vanya had no idea what the emotion currently coursing through her chest was. 

Leonard. 

He had manipulated her. Used her. 

She had killed him last time, horribly. And although she couldn’t say she felt bad about it, another part of her shied away from the memory. She couldn’t help but remember how valued and special he had made her feel. It made her feel dirty now. Like he had left a taint on her. 

The worst part was that she found she really didn’t want to kill him again. Discovering that about herself was pretty distressing. What sort of weak willed person was she? Had she been _that_ easy to manipulate that even now, after knowing what a monster he had really been, she was still caught up in her left over emotions towards him?

She dropped the letter and brought her shaking hands up to her head. She gripped her hair at the roots and snarled to herself.

Okay.  
Think Vanya.

What were her options here?

She could go to Leonard’s shop. Kill him again before he did anyone any harm. Could she do it? She didn’t have any control over her powers and the thought of purposefully trying to kill someone pre-emptively made her insides tremor. 

She could try and scare him away? 

Or…or she could just ignore him? Her mind grasped that option with relief, like a man dying of thirst in an oasis. Leonard had killed for her, to get her First Violin in the orchestra. But what if she never talked to him? Never engaged with him? Never gave him the opportunity to be in her life. Surely that would get rid of the problem? He wouldn’t be able to do anything if she refused to play in to his manipulations. 

A small part of her brain that sounded a lot like Five said she was being an idiot, but she shut it down. Hadn’t she killed enough people? Leonard was harmless as long as she didn’t interact with him. He would have no reason to hurt anyone without her in his life.

Yet even with this justification going through her head; that night was the second time in a row she had trouble drifting off to sleep. 

….

Hazel was tired. The library him and Cha Cha were sitting in was about to close and all he wanted to do was go back to their crummy motel and get some shuteye. He let out his third sigh in as many minutes and finally his partner reacted, turning away from the microfilm reader she was using to look through old newspapers. 

“This is our only lead right now, so shut up and stop complaining!”

“I didn’t say anything.” He said, raising his hands in a surrender motion. He paused for a second before continuing. “I just don’t understand why we couldn’t have gone back to the donut shop and talked to the waitress. Surely she’d be more useful than searching out a single name.”

“We can’t go to the donut shop, its still closed until they fix everything up. I’ve already said we’ll check it out tomorrow. Now be quiet so I can concentrate.”

Hazel stood with another sigh and walked away, perusing through the bookshelves as he went. He paused in front of the biography section. He didn’t understand people who wrote whole books dedicated to themselves. He understood people who would want to read such books even less. 

The sound of someone clearing their voice nervously behind him tore Hazel’s attention away from the books. 

“I-I’m sorry sir, but as we’re closing up now, I’m going to have to ask you to bring any last books you want to borrow to the check out.” A skinny man wearing a name badge that listed his name as ‘Paul’ spoke up from behind Hazel.

“Uh. Yeah no problem.” Hazel turned back to the area that Cha Cha was still sitting in.

“Was there a particular autobiography you were looking for? I can recommend my personal favourites if you’re just hoping for a good read?” The man continued, his young voice brimming with enthusiasm for the subject.

When was the last time Hazel had felt that excited about _anything_ and this little guy was getting that excited about some god awful masturbatory books?

“I don’t suppose you know any books written by someone called Vanya?” He said half-heartedly, what were the chances?

“Vanya? Well there is that one by Vanya Hargreeves, an okay read, the prose gets a bit flowery sometimes, but it is very popular with people who like that whole magic powers thingy.” 

Hazel stopped and turned back to Paul. The intensity of his gaze making the young man squeak slightly. 

“Magic powers you say? Like time travel maybe?” He asked. 

“Oh I don’t know, I’ve only given the book a passing glance myself, the Umbrella academy was a bit before my time.” 

“Huh. Well. You know what. I think I will take that book. Thank you Paul. You’ve been a great help. I’ll just grab my partner and we’ll get out of your hair.” Hazel gave the man his nicest smile.

Cha Cha was not going to believe this.

….

Klaus was lying on his back in his old bedroom enjoying the floaty feeling he was currently experiencing. The drugs he had finally gotten his hands on last night had been exactly what he needed to take the edge off his current stress. Being told that the world was ending in a week had seemed so important a little while ago, but now?

Well, sure! Klaus was glad Five was on the case, but surely they didn’t need him? 

His powers would be useless anyway. And its not like Ben could do anything either.

No. Klaus was much better suited to just enjoying the time he had left, just in case the world did end up ending. 

He watched the sun rise through his open curtains, the colours splashing across the bedroom walls in hypnotising patterns. Everything seemed so far away and so small. He felt like he could have laid here forever and watched as time moved impossibly slowly forward.

Eventually however, the drugs wore off enough for Ben to materialise. He was sitting on the floor of his room, his form blurry, seemingly asleep. Looks like he wasn’t quite sober enough to fully summon him, which was fine by Klaus. He’d probably just want to talk more about the oncoming apocalypse or nag more about the drugs. Everything was just so calm and nice right now. He didn’t want it to end.

His door swung open with a loud thud as it hit the wall. 

Urgh. Nevermind.

Luther’s annoying large form, filled the doorway and his annoying face was twisted into an expression that Klaus was too annoyed to puzzle out.

“I swear we had a knocking policy as kids? In fact I swear you and Allison were the ones who were very adamant about there being a knocking policy.” Klaus managed to hum out. Annoyingly he didn’t quite manage to convey his annoyance through his voice.

“We’re having a family meeting Klaus. That means everyone, including you.” Luther’s voice filled his entire small room and Klaus wanted nothing more than to roll over and ignore him. 

“Why don’t you call me down when everyone arrives, hmm? You surely can’t have found little Five yet? I don’t think he ever came home after leaving us at that dumb MerriTech place.” Klaus trailed off, yawing wide and stretching like a cat.

“You know where Five is?” Urgh. Was Luther still here?

“Probably, I don’t know. He’s got this whole world saving thing to do right now. I’d hate to distract him.”

“What are you even talking about?” Luther stepped into the room fully and Klaus was most annoyed by the fact that his large form blocked the swirling lights from the window. “It doesn’t matter. If you know where Five is then you are showing me.”

Luther grabbed Klaus by the arm and dragged him into a sitting position as he groaned in displeasure. 

“You are the worst, you know that? Its official, Vanya and Five are definitely now above you on the best sibling chart.” Klaus swatted ineffectively at the iron grip Luther had on him, but eventually gave up and let himself be tugged to his feet. 

By this point he’d become aware enough that Ben had woken up, and was looking at the scene quietly behind a blank face. Klaus stuck his tongue out at him just for something to do.

“Okay, lead the way Klaus.” Luther gestured out the door, and Klaus pouted before walking out, his brother following close behind him. 

….

Vanya had woken up late and hadn’t been able to bring herself to go to Orchestra practice. Her violin was still in its case, left by her sofa, where it had been since she had arrived back in the past. Even knowing there would be no blood on the bow from slashing open Allison’s throat, and that it wouldn’t be the pale bleached white it had turned after she had channelled all her power through it, she still didn’t feel ready to play it again. Part of her knew, that were she to play, she would probably be able to control her powers in a way she now couldn’t. 

But she couldn’t do it. Not yet. 

So instead she had a slow morning, treating herself to home made pancakes and 2 cups of fresh coffee. She knew she’d eventually have to find a new job, she wouldn’t be able to pay rent if she didn’t start up her lessons again. But that was a next week problem. Right now, concentrating on getting past the apocalypse with all her siblings alive was a bigger priority. 

Vanya was surprised by the knock at her door that interrupted her second cup of coffee. She peeked through the eyehole, fresh memories of Leonard still on her mind after last night. But it was Allison. She pulled open her door quickly.

“Allison? What are you doing here?”

“Hey! I thought I’d catch you at your practice, but they said you never showed up? Are you ok?” Vanya was surprised by the question, and stepped aside so that her sister could walk into her flat while she tried to come up with an answer.

“Oh, I’m fine…just woke up late I guess.”

Allison looked over her, taking in the coffee mug clutched in her hands and the PJs she was still wearing. 

“I can see that, you know it’s like 12:30 right?” Allison smirked at her, the worry that had been visible on her face sliding off.

‘Some times you just need a self care day, right?” Vanya replied walking back to her table and offering her sister her own cup of coffee. Allison waved her off.

“I’m glad you’re doing ok, especially after the mess of the funeral, with Diego and Luther. And then you never came back after getting coffee with Five…I was worried about you. It was a rough day.” 

Vanya felt her throat clog slightly with emotions. Allison cared so much, she had last time too, and how had Vanya repaid her? With a slash across the throat.

“Thank you, but…I’m doing ok you know? I…I know I messed up big with the book and I’ve been trying to find a way to make it right. I know we’ve never been that close. But…I’m trying…I want you guys in my life again. Even Diego with his stupid leather fetish. I really…miss you guys” 

Vanya felt tears prick at her eyes and start to slide down her checks. She coughed in embarrassment and turned away, trying to subtly wipe them away with her sleeve. To her surprise she felt a hand stop her, and found herself being pulled into a hug. 

Warmth bloomed in her chest, making the tears run faster as if the wall they had been hiding behind had melted. 

“I’m not good at this whole sister thing anymore than you are Vanya, but the fact that you’re trying? It means a lot. Family is important and I always took it for granted. I’m sorry too.” Allison’s voice was quite and muffled slightly from where her face was pressed into the top of Vanya’s head but she didn’t care, she still had a voice to speak with, that’s all that mattered. Coming back, doing all of this over again, with the stress and the fear and the choices. Suddenly it was all worth it for Vanya. She felt her will solidify inside her. Allison would not come to harm again.

Finally Allison pulled back wiping her own tears with a small laugh. 

“I actually came to find you because we’re having a family meeting, I got a bit side tracked there.”

“Family meeting?”

“Its about Mom, we think she had something to do with Dad’s death.” 

“Oh…oh no?” So it looked like this still was going to happen, even with the changes that had been going on. Well, no matter, Vanya wasn’t going to let Mom be shut off, her opinion hadn’t changed in any way concerning that.

“We’d better hurry back to the house then, I’ll get dressed.” Vanya shot Allison a last small smile before heading into her room to get changed. 

….

Vanya stood with her siblings as Luther played the tape of Dad’s death again. Like last time Five wasn’t there, and Vanya was admittedly a bit worried about him. She knew there was no reason to be, he could definitely look after himself after all, but now she knew what was at stake with the whole Commission thing, she didn’t like not knowing where he was.

Luther turned to all of the resolutely as the tape finished playing. 

“I don’t think Mom would hurt Dad.” Vanya spoke up, confident in a way she hadn’t been last time this had taken place. 

Luther speared her with a unreadable look. 

“People change. And sometimes the people you trust most of all suddenly aren’t who you thought they were.” He finally said, eyes never leaving her face.

What had brought this on? Was he that annoyed by her intervening in the fight between him and Diego? Vanya felt her heart rate pick up under her brother’s scrutiny and looked away.

“If he was poisoned, it would have shown in the coroner’s report.” Diego said. 

“Yeah well, I don’t need a report to tell me what I can see with my own eyes.” Luther answered harshly. 

“Maybe all that low gravity in space messed with your vision.” Diego stepped forwards and rewound the tape. “Look closer.” 

He pressed play and scene began anew. 

“Dad has his monocle. Mom stands up. Monocles gone.” 

“Oh yeah!” Klaus chuckled pointing towards the screen. Vanya stayed silent, her confidence slightly knocked by Luther’s hostility.

“She wasn’t poisoning him. She was…taking it. To clean it. “ 

“Mom took Dad’s monocle? But I’ve searched the entire house, she doesn’t have it.” Luther was looking very confused.

“That’s…. because I took it from her, after the funeral.” Diego admitted, looking down and away from the rest of them. 

Allison and Luther immediately took steps forward towards Diego, both of them scowling. 

“You’ve had the monocle this whole time? What the hell Diego!?” Allison spoke angrily.

“Give it to me.” Luther held his hand out but Diego just shrugged. 

“I threw it away.”

“You what!” Luther growled out taking another threatening step forward.

“Okay, can everyone calm down a bit please? Lets not have a repeat of the funeral?” Vanya finally spoke up, once again standing between her two brothers. 

The look Luther threw her was full of anger, but he backed off. 

“Diego why did you take the monocle from Mom?” she asked, as calmly as she could.

“I knew that if he,” he gestured angrily at Luther, “found it on Mom, he’d lose his shit. Just like he’s doing now.”

“You were protecting her.” She said softly.

Diego said nothing but looked away clenching his jaw. 

“I hate to be the one to bring it up…but has anyone else noticed Mom has been acting a bit odd lately? Maybe this can be explained by some malfunction or something that we can fix? Maybe she didn’t notice that Dad was dying when she was there?” Vanya continued.

“If that’s true then she could still be a danger to herself and others. We need to turn her off.” Luther spoke up, him voice firm.

“Whoa whoa whoa, wait!” Diego shouted, “She’s not just a vacuum cleaner you can throw in a closet!”

“Why do you always want to lock up or kill anything you don’t understand Luther! There is no proof that Mom is dangerous!” Vanya felt her anger spike suddenly, and she found herself actually taking a step towards her brother. 

Everyone fell silent in shock.

“Oh haven’t you heard? Vanya is assertive now.” Klaus piped up from across the room, breaking the tension in that way that was just so uniquely ‘Klaus’. 

Vanya breathed in and out trying to calm down.

“All I’m saying is, going straight to killing her is a bit extreme, until we know if she can be helped, or if the damage to her is permanent, then I vote we try and find someone to fix her.” 

She felt Diego stand next to her, his arm brushing hers slightly. 

“On this I actually agree with Vanya.” He grunted out.

Luther stood up straight, apparently over the shock of his smallest sister yelling in his face.

“I think the risk is too high. Also I’m not sure we should trust Vanya’s word that Mom didn’t realise Dad was dying. There are still too many unexplained coincidences in this house.”

Allison looked between Luther and Vanya, conflict written all over her face.

“I mean…If Vanya thinks she can be helped... shouldn’t we at least try? I can see that something is wrong with Mom, but maybe…deactivating her shouldn’t be our first choice?” 

A look of shock passed over Luther’s face for a second before it hardened again.

“I’m with the others, cos you know what, fuck you Luther. And if Ben were here he’d agree with me.” Klaus spoke up.

Vanya had no idea what Luther had done to piss off Klaus, but at this moment she was just too happy to care. 

They’d all sided with her! She’d tried to change someone and it had worked! 

Luther swore, throwing his hands into the air.

“Fine. But when its one of you lying there injured or dying and Mom just stands and watches, remember that I tried to stop this. And remember who you’re all putting your faith into. Or did you forget the book Vanya wrote that made it very clear what she thinks of this family.”

Vanya’s mouth fell open, “I-I never meant….I would never hurt…” She couldn’t find the words. Because she had hurt them. Again and again and again.

“That’s enough Luther!” Allison’s voice cut through the growing pain in Vanya’s chest. 

Luther snorted and walked away.

Allison walked over to Diego and slapped his arm. “And you! No more hiding monocles or important information from the rest of us!”

Diego shrugged unrepentantly, an oddly relieved expression on his face. 

“I’m going to go find Pogo, maybe he knows more about how she was built.” He finally said. He turned and gave Vanya a small nod before walking away.

Allison reached down and grasped one of Vanya’s hands. “Ignore Luther, he’s just…protective over Dad’s legacy…he’ll get over it.”

Vanya gave her sister a strained smile. “I hope so.”

Allison smiled sadly in response before following Diego out of the library. 

Vanya sighed heavily, ambling over to stand next to Klaus. 

“Hey, thanks for backing me up there, you as well Ben.” Vanya felt as though she could sleep for a week. The last two nights had been sleepless and the stress of her situation was starting to wear her down. 

“Luther was being particularly annoying today, so it was no skin off my back. You know I had a little chin wag with our favourite time travelling brother earlier. He’s still as insufferable as he was when we were children.” Klaus rested one of his pointy elbows onto one of Vanya’s shoulders.

“You saw him? What was he doing?”

“Camping out in a van outside Merritech. I think he’s hoping to catch the buyer, as they buy the eye…which you know…even I think sounds like a stupid idea.”

Vanya sighed again. 

“I can’t believe he went off on his own again.” She rubbed a hand against her face.

“Really? Because that sounds very much in character for little number Five to me.” Klaus stood up straight, stretching. “Well no matter. It’s his crusade right? I say let him do what he wants.”

“Klaus! He’s trying to save the world! We need to help him.” Vanya spun to look her brother in the eye and was concerned when he refused to make eye contact with her.

“Yeah well. I’m going to go have a bath, sooo, not going to be much help from there.” He gave her a small salute and started wandering towards the stairs.

Vanya watched him go, feeling like with every step forward she took 2 steps back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Noooo Vanya what are you doing?! Leaving Leonard to his own devices??  
> And Luther....you being a dick.
> 
> Sorry if there are any typos in this chapter, I'll admit that I'm a bit...hazy? At the moment, so havent checked over it as well as I normally would. 
> 
> Update on my health:  
> I've been prescribed some pills by my doctor to help, and unlike Vanya, I will be taking them. So far the side effects of nausea and head wool are kicking my ass, but hopefully they will abate soon and I will be back to writing like my productive self. Thank you guys for your patience in this time ^_^ It's less stress on my plate to know that I have such a great group of supportive readers


	13. Chapter 13

Vanya was sat curled up on a sofa on the second floor of the library. The sun had set a while ago, but so far she hadn’t wanted to go back to her apartment. She was worried about Klaus. About the change that had come over him in the space of a day. The performance he’d put on at Merritech had been amazing, he’d seemed dedicated to helping in any way possible. And yet now…

The apathy around him was one she knew personally from her own troubles, and it scared her. She needed to talk to him again. Try and figure out a way to help him. She couldn’t just wait around for Klaus to eventually be comfortable enough around her.

She sighed and sat up. Surely he was out of the bath by now, it’d been hours? She decided to head up to his room, make sure he didn’t sneak out without her knowing.

As she climbed the stairs to the third floor she thought she heard a sound come from the foyer, all the way down on the first floor. She looked over the banisters, but there was no light down there. The bulbs in the chandelier still hadn’t been replaced from when they’d all blown a few days ago. 

Vanya squinted through the dark, trying to pick out anything. 

Was that movement?

Suddenly a memory slammed in to her mind making her slap a hand to her mouth to stop the gasp. This was the night those assassins had invaded the house!

She had to warn her siblings!

She knew in the original timeline everyone had gotten out ok, her siblings had managed to fight them off. But what if with her warning them they could actually win? Kill them here and now and stop the threat!

She continued to walk slowly up the stairs, using all of her memories of the house so as to not step on any creaky steps or floorboards. 

Suddenly Vanya heard heavy footsteps coming up from behind her. She still had a few steps to go before she got to the third floor and there was nowhere to hide where she currently was. She could feel her heart rate pick up and sweat gather on her forehead. Was she going to have to fight? Could she do it without destroying the house and killing everyone in it? Her breaths came in shorter and shorter pants, as the footsteps grew louder.

She had to make a choice. 

NOW!

Vanya stood up, trying with all her might to concentrate on the echoing footsteps and nothing more. But her heart was so loud! And every time she tried to shape the sound of the footsteps she felt like she was trying to cup water in her fingers.

It wasn’t working! She’d run out of time!

A silhouette appeared in front of her, and Vanya felt her breath catch in her throat. 

“What are you doing lurking on the stairs?”

Vanya felt every atom of her being relax in relief, and she fell forward slightly, reaching out her hands to grasp at the upper arms of her brother.

“Diego!” She whispered out, still shaking slightly. “There are people in the house! I think they’re assassins looking for Five!”

“What!?” Diego brought his own voice to a whisper.

“I-I saw them. Downstairs. Two people with guns. We’ve got to warn the others!” She realised her grip on her brother was probably nearing painful for him, but he didn’t say anything, only nodded.

“I’ll find Luther and Allison, you need to find somewhere to hide.”

“W-what? B-but-“ Vanya stammered out.

“No!” Diego hissed out, brining his face near to hers. “You. Will. Find. Somewhere. To. Hide.”

Vanya felt her words get stuck in her throat and instead just nodded helplessly. Diego pushed her away from him, surprisingly gently, and Vanya continued up the stairs, ducking into the first room that was open. It was Klaus’s. 

Wait.

Where _was_ Klaus?

Just as she peaked her head back into the corridor to check for him she heard the sound of gunfire and shouting. 

Vanya pulled herself back into the room, tears pricking at her eyes. She was stupid! So stupid! How could she have forgotten about this! She found herself crouching next to Klaus’s bed fervently hoping that the changes she had been making weren’t going to backfire on her siblings. 

…..

Diego had not expected to walk into his least favourite sister trembling on the stairs. He had also not expected to hear about two assassins apparently infiltrating the house. But most of all, he had not expected to run into the two of them as he turned the corner and for the woman in the terrifying mask to say:

“Don’t let him throw his knives!” 

The next second he was running as fast as he could trying to dodge the hail of bullets that tore through the wooden floor and walls, biting at his ankles. He managed to duck into a side corridor, pressing his back against the wall.

How did they know about his powers? 

Diego didn’t have much time to ponder the issue, as soon he heard the sound of the assassins approaching his hiding place. Damn it! He needed to group up with Luther and Allison, although he was reluctant to admit it, going into a fight with two armed people that not only expected him but also knew about the ace up his sleeve was not going to go well.

Staying low, he sprinted towards the stairs, taking them down two at a time. He dove behind a table once he reached the second floor and stopped to listen, ears straining.

He heard humming echoing across the room in was in. Quiet humming that he was all too familiar with.

Mom! Shit!

As Diego threw himself out of his hiding spot, he barely noticed the shout of one of the assassins as they spotted him, too busy trying to get to the other side of the room.

Grace Hargreeves was sitting on her usual couch, humming to herself as she embroidered, not even looking up as he ran up to her, sweating and panting.

“Mom! Mom we’ve got to go,” Diego grabbed her by the arm and tried to pull her to her feet, but she was a lot heavier than she looked and it was proving to be more difficult than Diego had expected. 

“Diego,” She smiled up at him, “What’s the hurry silly?”

“Mom, please get up!”

“I’m busy right now Diego, I can come look at what you want to show me later, okay?” 

The sound of a gun cocking warned Diego just in time, and he managed to duck behind the couch to avoid the spray of bullets.

“NO!” He felt the scream rip from his throat as the bullets ripped through the area he had just been standing in, catching Mom across the arm and shoulder. He saw almost in slow monition as she jerked from the multiple impacts, the force of the bullets sending her off the couch on to the floor, where she lay there prone. From Diego’s crouched position he tried to crawl towards her. The bullets still biting into the surrounding area. Diego managed to grab her and pull her further behind the sofa.

“Mom! Mom are you ok?” His hands shook as he tried to check the damage done to her.

“Di..e..go. I’mmmm sooorr-“ Her voice cut out, falling silent.

Disbelief struck him like a hammer. She couldn’t just be…gone. Slowly he reached out a hand and brushed some of her hair away from her face. She remained unmoving. Cold and still in a way she had never been. 

Tears started to gather in his eyes and he felt his teeth grind in anger. 

They…they’d killed her. 

“No. I’m sorry Mom.” Diego whispered, his voice choking with the feeling of empty loss that was growing in his chest. He gave her one last look, the bloodless broken body of the women who had raised him, before sprinting out of his cover and throwing himself off the balcony into the library below.

Bullets ripped apart the air behind him and he felt a few snag against his arm, scoring burning lines of heat across his skin. He couldn’t keep this up. He knew he would be next if he didn’t find help.

He landed on one of the library sofas, springing back to his feet before he had even stopped moving. He heard the sound of running approaching him and suddenly Luther and Allison were in front of him. 

“What’s going on?” His sister grabbed his arm, stabilising him as he wobbled slightly.

“Two assassins, they-they killed Mom. They know about my powers.” Diego panted out, his breath catching with emotion, tears spilling down his cheeks. 

“Shit.” Luther peered up at the darkness above them, trying to spot movement.

Allison pressed her hand to her mouth in shock.

Suddenly something small descended out of the darkness, falling right at their feet. They all looked down at the odd cylindrical shape, recognising it at the same time.

“Flashbang, get down!” Luther shouted grabbing Allison and pulling her backwards. 

Diego stumbled back, panic making him uncoordinated. He barely made it two steps before his world exploded into pure white. 

….

Allison felt Luther grab her, pulling her away from the explosive device and into his chest. His quick thinking sheltered her as the small explosion detonated, and she was able to pull away from him after the world had stopped shaking. 

She blinked furiously trying to get rid of the white spots that floated in her vision. She stumbled slightly as her ears rang with a high-pitched. Quickly she glanced over at Luther, he looked dazed but was still standing, thank God. Diego however…

Allison stumbled over to her brother; he was laying spread out on the floor unresponsive, his eyes closed and blood leaking from one of his ears. In a panic she checked his pulse and let out a sigh of relief when she felt it move strongly under her fingers

“He must have been too close to the blast.” Luther said, or well, she thought he said. Only the base notes of his voice made it through the ringing in her ears. 

This wasn’t good, with Diego down and both her and Luther injured, this fight was going to be a lot harder.

Luther motioned upwards towards where the grenade had come from, his face grim. They needed to finish this quickly; they were not going to be able to win a fight of endurance in their current state. Allison reluctantly got to her feet, leaving Diego on the floor. 

Suddenly a shadow flickered out of the corner of her eye and Allison snapped her head towards the door of the Library.

Two masked figured stood in the shadow, their child friendly visages ruined by the shining guns they held in their hands. Allison dove out of the way, avoiding the first shotgun blast aimed at her. She hoped Luther also managed to dodge but she had no time to check. With a jump, Allison planted her foot on the smaller masked figure, pushing off in order to execute a higher kick to the assassin’s head. Through her ruined hearing she could just make out the sound of Luther yelling as he charged the other masked person, pushing them both backwards and into the foyer. 

Allison brought her arms up into a standard block, as the person (she was beginning to think it was a woman) she was fighting tried to bash her in the head with her gun. Allison used the opportunity to grab the weapon and try and yank it out of the women’s hands. She pulled it to one side, just as the assassin pulled the trigger, just missing shooting Allison in the stomach by inches. As a response Allison slammed her elbow into the woman arm, again and again, trying to loosen her grip on the weapon. Finally she managed to wrestle it free and throw it away from them. This turned out to be a mistake however. With Allison’s hands holding the gun, she had no way to block as the woman snapped out a hand, punching her square in the throat.

The blow took her by complete surprise and Allison’s hands shot up to grasp at her neck. She found herself choking and coughing in pain, her eyes watering and blurring her vision. Suddenly the assassin spun and kicked her straight in the sternum, sending her flying back. She felt a side table collapse behind her with the force of her slamming through it. As Allison lay in the broken shards of wood she tried to pull breath into her battered throat, the feeling of suffocation was starting to overcome her, tightening her chest with panic. Allison couldn’t even cry out for help as the masked women approached her. The last thing she saw was a black shoe flying towards her face.

….

The man Luther was fighting was doing everything to stay out of his reach. He danced around him like a boxer, making him feel even more slow and cumbersome than he usually did. He felt a growl of frustration build in his throat as once again the man danced out of his grapple. Luckily Luther had managed to knock the shotgun out of his hand when he first charged him, otherwise this fight would have been over a lot sooner.

With his compromised hearing, Luther had no way to know how Allison’s fight was going without taking his eyes off his own. And he knew that even a second of inattention in a fight could spell disaster. He had learnt that lesson the hard way.

Suddenly he felt something jab into his back and his muscles all clenched painfully as electricity arched through him. 

Luther fell forward, somehow managing to roll away from the source of the pain. With shaking hands he tried to push himself up, only to have his arms collapse under him as another shock stabbed into his back. Luther twitched on the floor, spittle flying from his mouth as he convulsed. 

Finally it stopped, and he managed to crack open his eyes. He could barely make out the form of the second assassin, holding what appeared to be some kind of cattle prod.

Where was Allison? It was all his mind could focus on. If this bastard had hurt her-

All thought was wiped from his mind as the masked figure jabbed into him again and his consciousness faded into blinding pain. 

…..

Hazel panted behind his mask, and the heat of his breath bouncing back in to his face in an unpleasant way. 

“That’s the robot, the knife thrower, the strongman and the mind controller right?” He managed to get out, stretching his torso to try and get rid of the stitch in his side. 

“Only the monkey butler, the ghost guy and our little author herself left.” Hazel thought it was very unfair that Cha Cha sounded completely fine while he was here sweating and panting.

“I doubt the monkey will be an issue. And Vanya Hargreeves is a non-combatant according to her book. I think the hardest bit is over.” His stitch was finally starting to fade, making it easier for Hazel to talk.

“I still think we should just kill them all here.” Cha Cha said, brandishing her new cattle prod threateningly.

“I told ya, with people as powerful as this, god knows how they effect the timeline. We shouldn’t kill them unless we have to. They might be the key to something important down the line or something. The author though…I doubt she’ll be missed, the rest of them don’t even like her that much according to her book. Only Five.” 

Cha Cha sighed in disappointment.

“I just feel like this is really gonna bite us on the ass later, you know. But fine. Lets get back upstairs and search then, the sooner we get her the sooner we get Five.” 

Hazel walked back up the stairs, Cha Cha bringing up the rear. Finding Vanya Hargreeves was actually shockingly easy. After reaching the landing they found her crouched over the broken form of the robot women. She looked exactly like her picture on the back of her book; mousy brown hair, short stature and generally unremarkable looking. 

She didn’t notice them approaching until Hazel had gotten within arms distance of her, then she spun around and attempted to pull away, panic and fear spreading across her face. Hazel quite easily grabbed her by the arm, stopping her escape. 

She had more fight in her than he expected however, and she tried knee him while screaming out for help. Hazel ears popped suddenly, the feeling not similar like to descending rapidly on an airplane.

What the fuck?

His vision blurred with water as the humid air under his mask all suddenly condensed. Without thinking he lashed out, wanting to stop the annoying struggling of the women in front of him. 

The butt of his shotgun made an audible thwack sound as he brought it down on the woman’s head. Like a puppet whose strings had just been cut, Vanya Hargreeves collapsed. Her full weight supported by the arm Hazel was still holding. His ears popped again, and he shook his head in relief.

“God dammit Hazel, we need her alive!” Cha Cha slapped his arm.

“Sorry, sorry! It was getting really itchy under my mask with all this sweat, I wasn’t thinking.”

Hazel grabbed Vanya’s chin and turned her face towards him. She had a noticeable gash across her forehead but she was still breathing and it didn’t look like he had accidentally caved in her skull, so that was good.

“I’m sure she’ll be fine.”

A strangled yell suddenly sounded from behind them. They turned and were both stunned by the vision in front of them.

A scrawny man, dressed in nothing but a towel was running towards them wielding a floor lamp as a weapon. 

“Get away from my sister!” He swung the lamp at Cha Cha with surprising force, causing her to swear as it smashed against her ribs. 

Her retribution was quick however. With blinding fast movement, Cha Cha tore the lamp out of the man’s grasp, and brought the based of it up, catching him under the chin and sending him flying backwards. The man landed on his back, and Cha Cha followed up with a stomp on his bare chest. Hazel heard the man wheeze as all the air was expelled from his lungs. 

“I think this is the ghost boy.” She said, throwing the now broken lamp away. “Maybe we should take him too? A backup in case your one doesn’t wake up after that little tap you gave her.”

Hazel inspected the head wound on his capture again. It did look pretty bad. And these types of things could always be touch and go. He wouldn’t want to go through all of this again to get another bartending chip if she ended up dying too quickly. 

“Fine. Grab him and lets get out of here.”

The man under Cha Cha’s foot began to tremble.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if this chapter reads a little disjointed with all he POV changes. I wanted to show each Sibling as they went down and this was the best way I could think off.
> 
> So both Cha Cha and Hazel were a lot more prepared this time due to reading Vanya's book...oops...
> 
> I've done my best with this chapter, but I can't help feeling the quality has gone down a bit :C I hope that next chapter will be easier.  
> Also I absolutely have read every single review, but I didn't manage to respond to them, there were just so many! But know that I really appreciate them
> 
> My nausea from my antidepressants has started to wear off, but I'm still struggling with motivation issues. Thank you all for you patience <3


End file.
